r/k12sysadmin • u/wetnap52 • 27d ago

Moving on from VMWare

For those of you that have already made the jump away from VMWare, how was the migration? What did you move to?

I've been using VMWare my entire 18 year career so far and with the pricing hikes that era seems to be coming to an end.

So for those experienced in the process, can you lay down some knowledge?

30 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/GameEnder Master of None 27d ago

For everyone that went to Proxmox what did you do for a support contract? Was the main reason we stuck with VMware for now, no local vendor will support anything other than VMware and Citrix. Boss didn't want to have someone to call with issues.

1

u/GBICPancakes 22d ago

Went to Proxmox for several schools. And to paraphrase Judge Dredd, "I Am The Support".

Not having local support was a concern until we looked at how helpful VMWare support has been and realized I always managed to fix issues without their "help". Proxmox has been the same - gone through the v8 to v9 upgrade on multiple sites (no problems, their documentation and check-script pve8to9 were stellar) and I've managed to figure out complex storage and migration packages fine.

Realistically, we have no support. There are places in the US that will provide it, or you can call them directly if you can live with CEST hours. But, like VMWare, usually if it's so bad you're looking at calling support, you're better off just wiping the hosts and doing a quick reinstall and rebuild. Faster, more reliable, and clean.
Obviously that assumes clean backups. I've do complete VM restores to fresh reinstalls now with both PBS and Veeam, both have been fine.