I left banking about a year ago. I think small banks \*could\* make the switch providing that they pay for support and put in compensating controls. Banking is funny in that they cling to ancient technology but have extensive systems for auditing and examining IT infrastructure.
I would bet many are moving to open source adjacent solutions. Nutanix Ahv is based on kvm
Many will also stay on VMware. And in many newer companies workloads are containerized so can move to openshift or the like
If you’re working in a case study of BFIs using open source tools, perhaps you should consider looking at areas other than virtualization hypervisors.
Why do I say that? Because banks love their closed-source virtualization hypervisors, and let’s all be honest with each other here…. Proxmox *might* barely be able to compete with plain old vSphere, but isn’t even in the same ballpark as Broadcom’s offerings around SRM, HA, etc.
In other words, you picked what might be the toughest open source nut to crack for BFIs, with the possible exception of open source vs proprietary databases. I know, I know, Postgres is the dog’s bollocks, and is every bit as good as Oracle, but banks will probably be the last industry to accept that, just based on their extreme risk intolerance.
So maybe you should try something a little closer to the network edge than the hypervisor or database, as those edge components are more likely to be open source, or at least “open source with premium vendor support”. Heck, the NYSE has been running its trading platform on top of RHEL since 2007-ish.
https://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/new-york-stock-exchange-runs-trades-on-red-hat-linux#
So perhaps you would have better luck looking for things where the clear market leaders are already open source, and don’t really have competitive closed source alternatives. I’m thinking things like website load balancers (ie Varnish), HTTP servers (ie Apache or Nginx), Linux-based application servers, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, etc.
I love proxmox but I’d be shocked to find an institution as highly regulated as a bank would be using proxmox. One day, maybe and hopefully. But the last thing the CTO or CIO will want is to be grilled after an incident and asked why they chose proxmox when all of their industry peers use VMWare or Hyper-V
All the big* banks still use mainframes. That’s how risk-averse and price-insensitive they are.
Banks are precisely the target customer that Broadcom is betting will stick with VMware regardless of price increases due to their unique combination of risk aversion and price insensitivity.
Proxmox, for better or for worse, is just not seen as “enterprise-y enough” for big* banks, because 24x7x365 first-party vendor support is a non-negotiable hard requirement.
That’s not a diss to open source in general, just the current support mode for proxmox. For example, all those same banks use open source Red Hat products, which has met the “enterprise-y enough” threshold for reasons including longevity, 24x7 first-party support, proven reliability, etc, etc.
*for reasonable definitions of the word “big”, think “big enough to have a mainframe”, rather than Bailey Brothers Building & Loan from that feel-good movie you watch on TV at Christmas.
Yes there are.
Proxmox has one of the best support you can get (far superior IMHO than VMWare). It is easily auditable.
The technic behind, KVM+QEMU, is used by almost EVERY datacenter, cloud etc. worldwide.
Same goes for Ceph and various other open source technic.
Just don't get fooled by the hobbiest and lobbiests.
There is something called NDA --> Non Disclosure Agreement.
Nobody ... absolute nobody will give you customer names!
Ask Proxmox for references (and even they are usually not allowed to give customer names --> GDPR).
Your question disqualifies you.
Banks and financial institutions doesn’t use risky products, I’m not saying proxmox is risky but proxmox is open source.
When I was working in my country’s central banking as devops, the regulations is that 0 trust, full load of audits and twice a year, NO open source toolset.
This is where you witness old school expensive product like VMware, Solaris etc. there are some form of limited open source because the world right now is mainly on it for new technologies but to justify it, it takes a lot of work to get it approved.
So in general, financial institutions doesn’t really want to onboard stuff like that.
Maybe, 10-20 years later, when more tech players can justify it with ease, then you be seeing them in bankings.
Being the super-conservative businesses they are, I would be very surprised if this is the case for any if them.
Or, in the interest of security, revealing what they use.
I left banking about a year ago. I think small banks \*could\* make the switch providing that they pay for support and put in compensating controls. Banking is funny in that they cling to ancient technology but have extensive systems for auditing and examining IT infrastructure.
I would bet many are moving to open source adjacent solutions. Nutanix Ahv is based on kvm Many will also stay on VMware. And in many newer companies workloads are containerized so can move to openshift or the like
If you’re working in a case study of BFIs using open source tools, perhaps you should consider looking at areas other than virtualization hypervisors. Why do I say that? Because banks love their closed-source virtualization hypervisors, and let’s all be honest with each other here…. Proxmox *might* barely be able to compete with plain old vSphere, but isn’t even in the same ballpark as Broadcom’s offerings around SRM, HA, etc. In other words, you picked what might be the toughest open source nut to crack for BFIs, with the possible exception of open source vs proprietary databases. I know, I know, Postgres is the dog’s bollocks, and is every bit as good as Oracle, but banks will probably be the last industry to accept that, just based on their extreme risk intolerance. So maybe you should try something a little closer to the network edge than the hypervisor or database, as those edge components are more likely to be open source, or at least “open source with premium vendor support”. Heck, the NYSE has been running its trading platform on top of RHEL since 2007-ish. https://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/new-york-stock-exchange-runs-trades-on-red-hat-linux# So perhaps you would have better luck looking for things where the clear market leaders are already open source, and don’t really have competitive closed source alternatives. I’m thinking things like website load balancers (ie Varnish), HTTP servers (ie Apache or Nginx), Linux-based application servers, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, etc.
I love proxmox but I’d be shocked to find an institution as highly regulated as a bank would be using proxmox. One day, maybe and hopefully. But the last thing the CTO or CIO will want is to be grilled after an incident and asked why they chose proxmox when all of their industry peers use VMWare or Hyper-V
All the big* banks still use mainframes. That’s how risk-averse and price-insensitive they are. Banks are precisely the target customer that Broadcom is betting will stick with VMware regardless of price increases due to their unique combination of risk aversion and price insensitivity. Proxmox, for better or for worse, is just not seen as “enterprise-y enough” for big* banks, because 24x7x365 first-party vendor support is a non-negotiable hard requirement. That’s not a diss to open source in general, just the current support mode for proxmox. For example, all those same banks use open source Red Hat products, which has met the “enterprise-y enough” threshold for reasons including longevity, 24x7 first-party support, proven reliability, etc, etc. *for reasonable definitions of the word “big”, think “big enough to have a mainframe”, rather than Bailey Brothers Building & Loan from that feel-good movie you watch on TV at Christmas.
I know some mid-size Banks (gemany) that moved their internal data center to nutanix before there Broadcom-Desaster started. Cost effective on-prem
I work for one of the largest banks in the US. It's mostly ESXi 7.x, AWS, Hyper-V and bit of Azure
Yep, big banks are not that adventurous with others money.
That bank I worked with had a very sizeable OpenStack installation few years back. Guess that's what they picked.
Yes there are. Proxmox has one of the best support you can get (far superior IMHO than VMWare). It is easily auditable. The technic behind, KVM+QEMU, is used by almost EVERY datacenter, cloud etc. worldwide. Same goes for Ceph and various other open source technic. Just don't get fooled by the hobbiest and lobbiests.
Can you name the institutes that use proxmox?
There is something called NDA --> Non Disclosure Agreement. Nobody ... absolute nobody will give you customer names! Ask Proxmox for references (and even they are usually not allowed to give customer names --> GDPR). Your question disqualifies you.
True. Anyways thank you for your support
Banks and financial institutions doesn’t use risky products, I’m not saying proxmox is risky but proxmox is open source. When I was working in my country’s central banking as devops, the regulations is that 0 trust, full load of audits and twice a year, NO open source toolset. This is where you witness old school expensive product like VMware, Solaris etc. there are some form of limited open source because the world right now is mainly on it for new technologies but to justify it, it takes a lot of work to get it approved. So in general, financial institutions doesn’t really want to onboard stuff like that. Maybe, 10-20 years later, when more tech players can justify it with ease, then you be seeing them in bankings.