Proxmox Virtual Environment, or Proxmox VE, open source server virtualization environment
Proxmox recently announced the introduction of a new import wizard for Proxmox VE, designed to simplify the migration process for importing VMware ESXi virtual machines. This new feature aims to ease the transition for organizations seeking alternatives to VMware's vSphere service.
After Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware last November, Broadcom quickly announced changes to the company's organization, including the end of VMware's perpetual licenses and the switch to subscriptions.
VMware confirmed it is discontinuing a wide range of products and that "these products are no longer available for purchase." Following the acquisition, Broadcom hinted at a policy of streamlining and simplification, and the 56 VMware products and platforms being discontinued have been listed:
"All licensing options, including perpetual licenses, support and subscription (SnS) licenses, SaaS/hosted licenses and subscriptions, as well as all editions, suites and pricing configurations for each product, unless otherwise indicated, are included in this listing. These products are no longer available for purchase.” VMware (Broadcom) also stated in its brief note: “Going forward, at renewal time, customers will be offered the best subscription products to meet their needs.”
The unpopular decisions were not limited to this: Broadcom decided to eliminate the free version of the ESXi virtualization software , a version that was used by many users, but which Broadcom does not view favorably and now only wants paying customers.
Given this situation, many of VMware's competitors, and even those offering similar or related products , did not miss the opportunity to attract all those customers and users who disagree with the changes implemented by Broadcom in VMware.
And in the case of Linux, Proxmox didn't overlook this and introduced the new import wizard , which is integrated with the existing Proxmox VE storage system, allowing direct integration with the platform's API and web-based user interface.
It is mentioned that the new wizard offers users the ability to import VMware ESXi virtual machines in their entirety, translating most of the original VM configuration settings to the Proxmox VE configuration model (while minimizing downtime).
As already mentioned, the import wizard is one of the features that will be part of the next version of Proxmox VE, so it is in preview. Although still in active development, according to the changelog, the wizard is stable and promises future improvements, such as the planned addition of support for other import sources such as OVF/OVA files.
It's worth mentioning that the assistant is already available , and to use it you must:
- Configure new storage for an import source through the Proxmox VE web interface (in the web interface under Data Center → Storage → Add).
- After this configuration, you can select the new storage, view all available virtual machines eligible for import, and start the import process with options to adjust certain settings.
- Advanced changes can be made after import, ensuring users have the ability to adjust their virtual machine configurations.
The import wizard in Proxmox VE currently supports ESXi versions 6.5 to 8.0, although with some limitations regarding vSAN storage and some performance limitations when using vCenter as an import source. To access these features, you can update Proxmox VE to specific versions of the pve-manager and libpve-storage-perl packages, available in the pvetest and pve-no-subscription repositories.
Finally, if you are interested in learning more about this , you can find the details at the following link.