Proxmox gives VMware ESXi users a place to go after Broadcom kills free version

Broadcom has made sweeping modifications to VMware’s enterprise since buying the corporate in November 2023, killing off the perpetually licensed versions of VMware’s software program and instituting large-scale layoffs. Broadcom executives have acknowledged the “unease” that every one of those modifications have created amongst VMware’s prospects and companions however thus far have not been taken with backtracking.

Among the many casualties of the acquisition is the free model of VMware’s vSphere Hypervisor, also called ESXi. ESXi is “bare-metal hypervisor” software program, which means that it permits customers to run a number of working programs on a single piece of {hardware} whereas nonetheless permitting these working programs direct entry to disks, GPUs, and different system sources.

One different to ESXi for house customers and small organizations is Proxmox Virtual Environment, a Debian-based Linux working system that gives broadly related performance and has the good thing about nonetheless being an actively developed product. To assist jilted ESXi customers, the Proxmox workforce has simply added a brand new “integrated import wizard” to Proxmox that helps importing of ESXi VMs, easing the ache of migrating between platforms.

The announcement claims that an imported ESXi VM can have “most of its config mapped to Proxmox VE’s config mannequin” to reduce downtime. The documentation signifies that the import wizard continues to be “in tech preview state” and “below energetic improvement,” although it is also mentioned to be “working steady.” The importer works with VMs made in ESXi variations 6.5 via 8.0, which was the most recent version available earlier than Broadcom discontinued the software program.

A wiki article from Proxmox additionally gives extra details about making ready your VMs for the transfer. The article recommends uninstalling visitor instruments made to work with ESXi, noting community configuration settings like MAC addresses or any manually assigned IP addresses, and disabling any full-disk encryption that shops its keys in your hypervisor’s digital TPM. It is at the moment not potential emigrate vTPM settings from one hypervisor to a different, so booting up a VM with disk encryption enabled would require a restoration key earlier than the machine will boot.

Just like the free model of ESXi, the free model of Proxmox VE does not embody technical assist past what is obtainable in Proxmox’s community forums. For individuals who use Proxmox VE and wish to deploy it extra extensively in a enterprise, Proxmox does supply a few subscription tiers that present entry to its extra steady Enterprise Repositories and precise technical assist from the software program’s builders.