45Drives launches the Proxinator

Very interesting new offering from 45 drives. It seems like they are aggressively targeting VMware users and rightly so as so many are looking for alternatives.

Broadcom's (VMware) recent strategy shift to focus on its top 600 clients, along with price increases and a reduction in its product offerings, has left many looking for alternatives. This decision has raised concerns among these enterprises about becoming reliant on proprietary solutions that might later change terms or services dramatically. While open-source options are available, they often require significant setup and maintenance, which may not be practical for all businesses.

45Drives has responded with the Proxinator™, a product designed to integrate virtualization with high-speed storage access. It comes pre-installed with Proxmox and provides a solution that is ready to use out of the box. It is intended to simplify the transition for those looking at alternatives to ESXi. They are providing tools and support for configuration, migration, and ongoing maintenance.

From a technical standpoint, the Proxinator™ is extremely interesting. It fully leverages open-source technologies, like Proxmox and Ceph, which can offer flexibility. The value proposition of this product lies in its all-in-one nature, which helps to minimize the overhead and complexity with switching or setting up new virtualization infrastructure.

The ease of transition for existing VMware users, the performance and reliability of the solution in various enterprise environments, and the level of support and service continuity offered by 45Drives are selling points. While the Proxinator™ is positioned as a turn-key solution, the real-world application and user experience will be interesting to see.

Tri-mode support

The machines support SATA, SAS and NvME drives. These are hybrid type units that blend the power and speed of flash with the capacity of spinning disks.

45Drives' founder Doug Milburn has a strategy that says the tri-mode support is important since many who will want to migrate from VMware have held on to older hardware and will appreciate a migration path that doesn't involve disposing of all their existing disks.

How much does it cost?

According to 45Drives, the largest Proxinator unit can house up to 4,000 VMs. Depending on the configuration, this hardware costs between $11,309 and $32,981.

https://www.45drives.com/products/proxinator/