Project Overview
In the VIRCL (Virtualization in the Cloud) module, we deployed and compared two industry-standard
Type 1 hypervisors — Proxmox VE and VMware ESXi — on real HP server
hardware in the school server room. Starting from bare-metal installation via ILO remote management,
we covered the full lifecycle of virtual machines: creation via GUI and CLI, hardware configuration,
cloning, snapshots, templates, backups, storage migration, and live hypervisor migration.
Our specialisation topic is High Availability (HA).
Team
- Würth Eric
- Simon Max
- Kugener Sven
Hypervisors Used
-
Proxmox VE — open-source Linux-based hypervisor (KVM + LXC), free to use,
managed via a web UI and command line. Installed on HP09.
-
VMware ESXi — industry-leading commercial Type 1 hypervisor by Broadcom,
managed via the vSphere Client and vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). Installed on HP11/HP12.
What We Implemented
- Hypervisor Installation — Remote deployment via ILO5 HTML5 console; network configuration (static IP, gateway, DNS)
- VM Creation — GUI & CLI — Creating VMs through the web interface and via
qm create (Proxmox) / vmkfstools + vim-cmd (ESXi)
- OS Installation — Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Linux server) and Windows 10/11 within VMs on both hypervisors
- Hardware Changes — Adding/removing CPU cores, RAM, hard disks and NICs; live hot-plug of CPU/RAM where supported
- Clone / Duplicate — Cloning VMs via GUI (Proxmox right-click Clone; vSphere Clone wizard) and by manually copying .vmdk/.vmx files on ESXi
- Export — Exporting VMs as OVF/OVA (ESXi) and vzdump archives (Proxmox)
- Hypervisor Config Backup —
tar czf proxmox-config-backup.tar.gz /etc/pve/ on Proxmox; vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config on ESXi
- VM Backup — Built-in scheduled backup jobs (Proxmox Datacenter → Backup); ghettoVCB script-based backup on ESXi Free
- Snapshots — Create / rollback / delete snapshots on both platforms
- VM Templates — Convert to template (Proxmox right-click; ESXi Template menu); manual VMDK clone + VMX edit workaround on ESXi Free
- Remote Storage (CLOIF2 NAS) — Connected TrueNAS via NFS (Proxmox) and iSCSI (ESXi); used as shared datastore for VM files
- Storage Migration — Live move of VM disks from local storage to NFS/iSCSI datastore while VM is running
- Hypervisor Migration (vMotion / Proxmox Migrate) — Live migration of running VMs between two hypervisor nodes using shared iSCSI storage
- User & Permission Management — Proxmox datacenter users + roles; vCenter SSO users, custom roles, and ACL propagation
- Patching — ESXi compliance check via vSphere Lifecycle Manager; host reported Compliant against Critical Host Patches baseline
- High Availability (Specialisation) — vSphere HA cluster with two ESXi hosts, shared iSCSI storage, heartbeat datastores, admission control and failure response policies configured
Video Tutorials
Two video tutorials are currently in production and will be added here once finished.
One covers a key topic on Proxmox VE, the other on VMware ESXi.
Both include a live screen recording with audio commentary.
Specialisation Presentation — High Availability
Our 20-minute specialisation presentation on High Availability will take place during
the week of 15–19 June 2026. It covers the theoretical concept of HA, a comparison of
the HA implementation in Proxmox VE and VMware vSphere, and a live demonstration
on one of the two hypervisors.
Key Takeaways
This project was my deepest dive yet into enterprise virtualisation. Working simultaneously
with Proxmox and ESXi on physical HP servers gave me a clear picture of how different
open-source and commercial hypervisors approach the same problems. Configuring live
migration, shared iSCSI storage, and a proper HA cluster felt like real sysadmin work —
including the troubleshooting that comes with it. Setting up the second heartbeat datastore
to resolve the HA warning was a good example of how production environments demand
attention to details that lab guides often skip.