Preface

Proxmox is one of the biggest kept secrets in the world of virtualization. It stands tall with other major virtualization players, such as VMWare, Xen, Hyper-V, and so on. Since the first release of Proxmox in 2005, it has become the standard for open source hypervisors. It is loaded with great features, such as clustering, High Availability, major storage plugins, firewalls, full KVM/OpenVZ support, and a price that cannot be beaten by any other virtualization product in the industry. Proxmox provides a rock solid platform to build virtual environments that are scalable to any size and can be managed entirely from a single GUI. In a matter of minutes, a standard Proxmox cluster can be raised and brought into production without any licensing costs.

This book is written to get you familiar with Proxmox by following step-by-step procedures. The steps are broken down in as simple manner as possible, thereby allowing you to cook up a Proxmox cluster with minimal effort. This book can also be used as a quick reference to fall back on when working with a Proxmox hypervisor. Illustrations have been used wherever possible along with a hands-on approach that enables you to retain the knowledge you've acquired for a longer period of time. Different topics and features are categorized in different chapters, making this book an easy read.

Often, we lack a book that is a reference point to get things done quickly. Although there are other books on Proxmox written in greater detail, a book, such as this one, was needed so that you could be brought on board with regard to Proxmox in the least amount of time. Each chapter is written with the aim of doing more and reading less.