Proxmox delivers its software-defined datacenter contender and VMware escape hatch

Open source virtualization project Proxmox has delivered the first full and stable release of its Datacenter Manager product, making it a more viable alternative as a private cloud platform.

Proxmox’s Virtual Environment, a platform that hosts virtual machines and containers, and includes software-defined storage and networking, has become increasingly prominent in recent years as Broadcom’s VMware business unit focused on large enterprise customers. Proxmox has become a popular alternative to VMware for organizations whose needs don’t go far beyond basic server virtualization. Even one VMware partner The Register recently spoke to decided Proxmox was sufficient for some internal workloads it felt did not need all the features of VMware’s Cloud Foundation platform.

Proxmox, however, has bigger ambitions and on Thursday started chasing them by releasing a new product called Datacenter Manager that offers centralized management for multiple, independent Proxmox-based environments.

As explained in Proxmox’s launch ...