Preface

	"There is a double spooking the world, the double of abstraction. The fortunes of states and armies, companies and communities depend on it. All contending classes - the landlords and farmers, the workers and capitalists - revere yet fear the relentless abstraction of the world on which their fortunes yet depend. All the classes but one. The hacker class." "The virtual is the true domain of the hacker. It is from the virtual that the hacker produces ever-new expressions of the actual. To the hacker, what is represented as being real is always partial, limited, perhaps even false. To the hacker there is always a surplus of possibility expressed in what is actual, the surplus of the virtual. This is the inexhaustible domain of what is real without being actual, what is not but which may be. To hack is to release the virtual into the actual, to express the difference of the real."
	-- McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto

Not so many years ago, it would've taken three computers to author this book efficiently on the go. Virtualization, however, has made it possible to write without the obscene hassle of dragging about so much baggage. Virtualization has reduced labor and energy expenditure and maximized productivity and discretionary time during the writing and production of this book.

Abstraction liberates us from material constraints, leaving in their place the privilege of nostalgia—tractor-fed edge strips, darkroom chemicals, printing presses and type-set trays, overflowing money bags with dollar signs, and of course, cramped server rooms.

Through server virtualization, the abstraction of computing resources from physical systems has overturned data centers and radically upset the traditional and repetitive routines of system engineers and administrators in favor of efficiency, conservation, lowered expenditure, secure systems, and the simple deployment of automation to complete repetitive tasks.

Proxmox VE has been a pioneering agent in this rapid revolution since the 2008 release of version 1.0—the first hypervisor to support both virtual machines and containers.

With version 4.2 in the works, and the industry's fascination finally fixed on the realization of a container revolution, Proxmox VE still provides an open source, enterprise virtualization solution with premium support that enjoys tremendous international popularity—even as competing brands have scrambled to roll out container solutions just in time.

This book is packed with introductory concepts and best practice techniques for experienced Linux users eager to take advantage of bleeding edge virtualization strategies and practices with Proxmox VE.

This book explores the benefits of two of these complementary virtualization technologies, containers and virtual machines, so you'll be forearmed to make informed and deliberated choices regarding the best paths for virtualizing your data center.