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Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.1 Brings Automated Deployments and Ceph Monitoring
Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.1 is now available! This multi-cluster management tool - acting as a true "vCenter for Proxmox" - gets new features, including automated deployments. Here’s the key information you need to know about this new release.
Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.1 is based on Debian Trixie 13.5 and Linux kernel 7.0.
Table of Contents
Automating Proxmox installations
Shortly after the release of Proxmox VE 9.2, Proxmox unveiled a new version of Proxmox Datacenter Manager, also known as PDM. This 1.1 release brings several welcome additions, including automated installations. From now on, PDM lets you create answer files from its own interface using a dedicated wizard. This wizard lets you preconfigure several categories of settings:
- General system settings (with the ability to inject public SSH keys)
- Regional options (time zone, country, keyboard)
- Network settings
- Disk selection and configuration
These answer files are then served over HTTPS to the target machines where Proxmox VE must be installed, during the boot phase. This makes provisioning a new node easier, in a repeatable and consistent way, which is fully in line with what Proxmox Datacenter Manager is all about.
Proxmox explains that to secure communication between the Proxmox node and PDM, a security token is used. It ensures that sensitive configurations are delivered only to authorized machines.
Monitoring for Ceph clusters
This new version of PDM also adds a monitoring layer for Ceph, which is particularly useful for those using Ceph for hyperconverged storage (HCI). PDM 1.1 can monitor Ceph clusters across all connected remote Proxmox instances. You can then check:
- The overall health of the cluster
- Overall storage capacity and performance
- The status of monitors and managers
- The behavior and health of OSDs and pools
In addition, PDM 1.1 also displays its own metrics from the administration console.
Subscription management
To make it easier for businesses to adopt the solution, version 1.1 introduces a centralized tool for managing Proxmox subscription keys through a unified interface. Instead of having to manually inspect each node one by one, PDM collects all keys in a central pool and can even automatically suggest subscription distribution across the different configured remote servers.
"A predefined answer file can also contain a specific subscription key, allowing a newly provisioned host to automatically register its subscription during installation.", Proxmox explains in its announcement.
A world map to visualize your resources
A map view is now available to see the geographical location of your remote Proxmox servers. For Proxmox VE nodes, geographic location information comes directly from the options configured at the node or datacenter level. For Proxmox Backup Server (PBS), the location is defined through the system settings. For MSPs, this seems like a truly essential feature that should be a hit!
To see these new features in action, check out this video published by the Proxmox team.
