Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0: The revolution in centralized virtual infrastructure management

Proxmox has launched its secret weapon for enterprise-scale virtual infrastructure management: Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0. This first stable release revolutionizes how companies manage multiple Proxmox VE and Proxmox Backup Server environments, offering a centralized control panel that allows managing thousands of virtual machines from a single interface. Completely developed in Rust, with a modern frontend and support for live migrations between clusters, this release marks a before and after in distributed virtual infrastructure management.

What is Proxmox Datacenter Manager and why is it revolutionary?

Proxmox Datacenter Manager (PDM) is an open-source centralized management solution designed to oversee and manage multiple independent Proxmox environments. Unlike traditional solutions that require accessing each cluster individually, PDM provides an aggregated view of all connected nodes and clusters, enabling management of complex and distributed infrastructures, from local installations to globally scaled data centers.

What makes PDM revolutionary is its ability to manage multiple clusters without requiring a shared cluster network. This means you can manage geographically distributed Proxmox infrastructures, in different data centers or even in different countries, from a single control point. For companies with distributed IT infrastructure, this is a paradigm shift.

Main features: what can PDM do?

🔧 Cutting-edge technology stack

Proxmox Datacenter Manager is completely developed in Rust, from the backend API server to CLI tools and a completely new frontend. This modern technology stack offers:

🎯 Centralized multi-cluster management

PDM's star feature is its ability to manage multiple Proxmox VE and Proxmox Backup Server clusters as remotes. You can add any Proxmox host or cluster as a remote, and PDM will monitor them and provide basic management using only the API.

This means you can:

📊 Centralized monitoring and metrics

PDM efficiently collects metrics from all your Proxmox remotes, providing a unified view of health, performance and capacity of your entire infrastructure. This includes:

🔐 Integrated enterprise security

PDM includes a robust enterprise access control system with support for:

Scalability: how much can PDM manage?

According to Proxmox, they have run tests with over 5000 remotes and over 10000 virtual guests to confirm the performance expectations of the new UI framework. Although there are still some pain points due to the early stage of development, they are confident they will be able to handle large setups with a moderate amount of resources.

This means PDM can scale from small businesses with a few clusters to large organizations with globally distributed infrastructure.

Requirements and compatibility

To use Proxmox Datacenter Manager, you need:

⚠️ Important: Reverse proxies between PDM and Proxmox VE remotes are not supported. For hosts that must not be exposed directly to a non-private network, Proxmox recommends using tunneling (for example, WireGuard or OpenVPN).

SDN integration: EVPN between clusters

An especially interesting feature of PDM 1.0 is the initial Software-Defined Networking (SDN) integration with EVPN configuration between clusters. This allows creating virtual networks that extend between multiple clusters, facilitating workload migration and distributed network management.

Although this functionality is in its initial phase, it marks the path towards more advanced and centralized network management in future versions.

License and enterprise support

Proxmox Datacenter Manager is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (GNU AGPLv3), which means it is completely open-source and you can use, modify and distribute it freely.

For companies that need enterprise support, Proxmox offers Enterprise Support available for existing customers with active Basic or higher subscriptions for their Proxmox remotes. This includes priority technical support and access to stable updates.

Use cases: who should use PDM?

Proxmox Datacenter Manager is ideal for:

Conclusion: the future of virtual infrastructure management

Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 represents a qualitative leap in virtual infrastructure management. With its ability to manage multiple clusters without requiring shared networks, its modern technology stack and its focus on scalability, PDM is positioned to become the standard solution for companies managing Proxmox infrastructure at scale.

For companies already using Proxmox VE or Proxmox Backup Server, PDM offers a way to centralize management without sacrificing the flexibility of having multiple independent environments. The cross-cluster live migration capability, centralized monitoring and initial SDN integration make PDM a powerful tool for distributed infrastructures.

Although it is still in its first stable version, Proxmox's roadmap promises continuous improvements and new features. For companies looking to optimize their virtual infrastructure management, Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 is definitely a solution to consider.