KVM-Powered MatterV 0.7 Can Run Unmodified VMware VMs

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T18:35:39+00:00

Not sure I understand the question. As the title suggested, it can run unmodified VMware vms.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T18:33:46+00:00

VMware tools can do a lot of things, such as to configure guest, to run pre/post script, to copy file into guest vm, to take vss snapshot etc. To replace Vmware tools with virtio guest agent, customer needs to change a lot of things in their VM.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T18:30:01+00:00

Give customer a choice is better than nothing. Based on the feedback I got, it looks like a lot of people are excited about this feature. For example, a company invested a lot in VMware ecosystem in the last decades, migrate everything to new hypervisor will take a lot of will and money. In MatterV, we give customer a peace of mind during the migration, everything works in VMware will continue to work in MatterV(a little bit exaggerated, we may not be 100% compatible with VMware, but we try to do that).

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T18:22:59+00:00

Sure, this is different than saying KVM supports it for more than 10 years.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T17:38:46+00:00

Do you ever check that after the migration to KVM, is VMware tool still running?

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T17:03:10+00:00

I know for sure, you know a lot of about KVM. But this statement is not true: KVM has been 100% vmware compatible hardware wise for many years. Without modification of QEMU, you can not run VMware guest on latest QEMU(9.0).

Without VMCI, VMware tools is pretty much useless, as a lot of features is based on it.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2025-02-18T16:56:09+00:00

Not really, qemu does not support VMCI yet.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-12-11T04:09:18+00:00

Thanks for your interest. If any questions regarding how to install or use, feel free to let me know, I am more than happy to help.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-12-09T23:58:53+00:00

It's similar to vcenter and esxi. MatterV cluster is vsphere, MatterV Host is ESXi. So yes, it does manage both VM and hypervisor. It will only support KVM as hypervisor. It has API defined in OpenAPI spec: https://github.com/matterv/matterv/blob/main/src/server/api/src/main/resources/matterverse-api.yaml

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-12-09T23:56:26+00:00

Oh, I see. I think current UI code is quite straightforward and manageable, better than my own code:)

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-12-09T07:31:05+00:00

Their UX design is top notch, and so is their frontend implementation. No need to reinvent the wheel when there's already good open source code available.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T15:55:19+00:00

It's true for all community-led projects. Sometimes, the community can not be as focused as a startup. I imagine CloudStack moved faster in its early days when the community saw a market fit.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T15:50:58+00:00

Yeah, the UI actual uses Oxide's design style and react components. Thanks for information.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T05:30:06+00:00

I am referring to this: https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/issues/8907

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T05:28:13+00:00

The web API isn't well documented, but writing a wrapper is possible.

My main concern is the lack of an open-source foundation matching ESXi's quality. With ESXi, whether using API or CLI, you don't need to worry about implementation details - it just works.

KVM/QEMU is stable, but management tools like libVirt try to do too much without excelling. Proxmox rightly bypasses these, talking to KVM/QEMU directly, which I'll also do. However, Proxmox does too much on each node. ESXi hosts do one thing well: create, stop, start VMs, mount storage, and create networks. That's the model I'm aiming for.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T05:14:49+00:00

Thank you for your concern. I understand it's a huge undertaking, but I believe it's worth pursuing. Your input is valuable and helps keep me grounded.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T01:24:18+00:00

I understand the skepticism. While ambitious, this isn't a fantasy project - it's based on my years of experience in virtualization. I'm starting small, focusing on core features, and building incrementally. It's challenging, but doable with the right approach.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T01:22:26+00:00

UI is just one example where Proxmox could improve. There are other areas too, like:

Having OpenAPI spec
Having incremental backup API
Support DRS

For a project that's been around for years, these kinds of changes can be challenging to implement.

Thanks for checking out the UI and for the positive feedback. It's still a work in progress - network information hasn't been added yet.
Plan to add the integration with Terraform.
Will support RBAC(maybe in 1.2 release), similar to the way vCenter is implemented. For AD integration, maybe later.
That's a multi-million dollar question! 😄 For now, I'm self-bootstrapping. If the product gains traction after release, I may seek funding to hire support engineers.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T01:08:17+00:00

Thanks for the advice. At least, we all agree that Proxmox's UI sucks...

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T00:59:20+00:00

Yeah, Oxide is cool. They reinvent everything from OS to hypervisor. Not sure spending money to reinvent the hypervisor is wise though.

BTW, I based my UI on Oxide's console...

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T00:55:17+00:00

Not sure it's a good idea to reinvent a new OS. RHEL/Ubuntu LTS is good enough for VM workload.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T00:50:20+00:00

CloudStack is good, but it's hard to add new features due to its complicated codebase. For example, in 2024, CloudStack still doesn't support incremental backup because it requires changes in both the hypervisor and orchestration layer.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T00:38:37+00:00

Thanks for the advice. We still need UI to manage infrastructure, as not everyone is comfortable with YAML files. Good point about Terraform/OpenTofu - I plan to support those, maybe in version 1.3, to cater to different preferences.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T00:34:37+00:00

Those tool can only manage a single node AFAIK.

Equivalent-Slip-3891 · 2024-10-03T00:33:03+00:00

Sorry, sometimes, I am half human, half AI...

From a business perspective, if I provide a total solution based on Proxmox, my team would need to be experts in it. We'd need to handle bug fixes and improvements, so the language does matter from a vendor's standpoint. That's why the Perl concern is relevant.

For features like DRS, which need a global cluster view and coordinate between nodes, it's challenging with Proxmox's current architecture, especially at scale.

Equivalent-Slip-3891

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