VMware to Proxmox Migration

I’m moving our entire virtual infrastructure from VMware vCenter to Proxmox VE, with hardware split between two sites—Miami and Tampa. The work is intentionally staged:

Phase 1: Home-lab proof of concept
A compact Proxmox cluster will be stood up in my lab, then loaded with a handful of representative VMs. Stability is the single most important measure here; the cluster must stay up, handle live migrations, run backups, and survive node reboots without dropping workloads. Clear documentation of the build and any tweaks you make is expected so I can reproduce the setup if needed.

Phase 2: Production roll-out
Once the lab proves rock-solid, we replicate the design in both datacenters. The end goal is better management—specifically, a single pane of glass that centralizes control and trims back the day-to-day administration chores that vCenter currently complicates. Think seamless VM lifecycle operations, straightforward HA, automated backups, and unified monitoring.

Deliverables (condensed):
• Fully functional lab cluster with HA, live migration, and backup jobs tested
• Written runbook and quick-start admin guide
• Production-grade design for Miami and Tampa, including inter-site replication/fail-over strategy
• Final production deployment and monitoring dashboard that pulls both sites into one view

Acceptance criteria: a full week of uninterrupted lab uptime, no failed migrations or backups, and common tasks (create, clone, snapshot, restore) requiring fewer steps than in vCenter.

Familiarity with Proxmox VE 8.x, Ceph or ZFS, and automation tools such as Ansible or Terraform will help streamline the build, though I’m open to equivalent approaches if they align with the goals above.

Show me the stable lab, and we’ll push straight into production.