Proxmox VE vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

Proxmox VE is a complete virtualization management solution for servers. It is a powerful open-source platform and supports two virtualization technologies - KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) for virtual machines and LXC for containers. Proxmox VE has a central user interface that allows you to manage not only VMs and containers, but also storage resources, network configuration, and high availability for clusters. It is enterprise-ready and is valued for its scalability and maximum flexibility, enabling you to virtualize very demanding workloads. Proxmox VE makes it possible for you to easily install, manage, and monitor hyper-converged (HCI) data centers.

Proxmox VE Key Features

The Proxmox VE platform has many powerful features, including:

pen-source software, high-available clusters, command line, fencing, a web-based management interface, flexible storage options, REST API, live/online migration, storage replication stack, software defined storage, virtualized networking, backup and restore, two-factor authentication, role-based administration, and VM templates and clones.

Proxmox VE Benefits

Some of the biggest benefits of Proxmox VE are:

• Central management: To manage all tasks of your virtual data center, you can use the central, web-based management interface.
  
  
• Unique multi-master design: Proxmox VE allows you to carry out maintenance tasks cluster wide, from any node.
  
  
• Minimize downtime: With the integrated live/online migration feature, you can move running virtual machines from one Proxmox VE cluster node to another, without any downtime or noticeable effect from the end-user side.
  
  
• Granular access: Using Proxmox VE’s role-based permission management system helps you define granular access to all objects.
  
  
• Multiple authentication sources: Proxmox VE supports multiple authentication sources, including Linux PAM, an integrated Proxmox VE authentication server, LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, and OpenID Connect.
  
  
• Several storage options: The Proxmox VE storage model is very flexible and the web interface allows you to add multiple storage types (LVM Group, iSCSI target, NFS Share, SMB/CIFS, Ceph RBD, Direct to iSCSI LUN, GlusterFS, CephFS).
  
  
• Collaboration with Ceph: Proxmox VE fully integrates Ceph, giving you the ability to run and manage Ceph storage directly from any of your cluster nodes.
  
  
• Scheduled backups: With Proxmox VE, backups can be scheduled so that they automatically run on specific days and times, for selectable nodes and guest systems.
  
  
• IT infrastructure protection: Proxmox VE has a built-in firewall that works to protect your IT infrastructure. The firewall is completely customizable, allowing complex configurations via the GUI or CLI.

Reviews From Real Users

Here is some feedback from some of our users who are currently using the solution:

A PeerSpot user who is a director at a tech services company says, “The most valuable features of Proxmox VE are the ease of containerization. Overall the solution is generic, feature-rich, and has compatibility.”

Another PeerSpot user who is a head of IT operations at a tech services company mentions that "In addition to the virtualization, the firewall and the routing functions that it provides are valuable."

Deepen D., director and CTO at TechnoInfotech, expresses that "The feature that I have found most valuable is that its storage container, LVM, and everything else work out of the box."

OpenShift is Red Hat's Kubernetes platform that provides a cloud environment for development, hosting, and scaling applications. The solution enables a cloud-like experience regardless of the location where it has been deployed, including in the cloud, on premises, or at the edge. It allows developers to select where to build, deploy, and run applications through a consistent experience, supported by full-stack automated operations, and self-service provisioning.

OpenShift employs an open hybrid cloud strategy which is built on the foundation of technologies including Linux, containers, and automation. This approach provides clients with a flexible selection of where to run their applications. Applications can be built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and are automatically compatible with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. OpenShift enables automation inside and outside clients' Kubernetes clusters.

The solution works with traditional, modernized, and cloud-native applications. It supports a wide variety of workloads, including Java, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), and databases. Due to the vast ecosystem of technology partners that OpenShift supports, clients can benefit from automated deployment and life-cycle management. This product improves the security of the full application life cycle by decreasing operational risk. This is achieved by shifting security left and automating development, security, and operations (DevSecOps).

OpenShift Features

OpenShift facilitates clients’ application-running processes through various features. Some of the product’s features include:

• Backup and recovery: This feature ensures logical and physical protection through containers, Kubernetes, and serverless present opportunities. It is used to meet recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO).
  
  
• CI/CD pipelines: This feature of OpenShift automates the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, accelerating the time for application development.
  
  
• GitOps: The GitOps feature increases security and reliability for applications through tools like Git repositories, Kubernetes, and CI/CD. The product includes this feature to allow developers more freedom in app development through tracing and accounting for the application life cycle in the Git repository.
  
  
• Helm: Helm is a package and installs manager that simplifies the deployment of containerized apps. It is included in the features of OpenShift to assist users with interoperability and support cloud-native applications from independent software vendors (ISVs).
  
  
• Sandboxed containers: OpenShift offers sandboxed containers based on Kata Containers to provide an additional layer of isolation for applications while meeting high-security requirements.
  
  
• Windows containers: The product offers this feature to facilitate users when running their Windows applications by providing them a scheduled, orchestrated, and managed environment.
  
  
• Security: OpenShift offers various operations through which clients can ensure the safety of their data and applications. They include container host and platform multitenancy, security and trusted content sources, security of the container registry, the build pipeline, and data, managing security container deployments, and more.
  
  
• Service Mesh: This feature provides a uniform way for clients to connect, manage, and observe microservices-based applications. It also provides detailed behavioral insight.
  
  
• Operators: This feature automates the development, configuration, and management of Kubernetes-native applications.
  
  
• Virtualization: OpenShift allows users to run and manage virtual machine (VM) and container workloads side by side.

OpenShift Benefits

OpenShift provides the companies and users utilizing it with various benefits. These benefits include the following:

• OpenShift provides scalability for applications, allowing them to run across hundreds of nodes in seconds.
  
  
• The product offers flexibility by simplifying the deployment and management of hybrid infrastructure and providing self-managed or fully-managed service.
  
  
• OpenShift incorporates open-source technologies alongside its native components and features.
  
  
• The product enhances the developer experience by offering a variety of tools, multi language support, and integrated development environment (IDE) integrations.
  
  
• The solution supports automated installation and over-the-air platform upgrades in the cloud with Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, as well as various on-premise platforms.
  
  
• OpenShift includes streamlined and automated container and app builds, as well as health management and scaling.
  
  
• The solution enhances the support of smaller-footprint topologies in edge scenarios.
  
  
• OpenShift provides easy multiple cluster management through Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes.
  
  
• The product has enhanced security capabilities that include access controls, an enterprise registry with a built-in scanner, and networking.
  
  
• The solution supports a wide spectrum of enterprise storage solutions for running stateful as well as stateless apps.

Reviews from Real Users

An executive head of department - M-PESA Tech at a comms service provider gives OpenShift a high rating because its automation can go a long way in reducing time to market and the time required to fix issues that arise from deployment.

Vikram C., head of infrastructure & cloud ops at a comms service provider, rates highly three qualities of OpenShift, summarizing them to mature, seamless integration, and easy setup.