Introduction

For years, public cloud has been the go-to for organisations chasing quick scalability, hands-off operations, and pay-as-you-go convenience. But lately, a lot of businesses are realising that some workloads can be cheaper, more secure, or even run better when they’re back on home turf. This trend, often called “cloud repatriation,” involves shifting certain workloads (or your whole environment) from public cloud into a private data centre.

Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment) has emerged as a ripper of an open-source platform for setting up a private cloud. It supports both virtual machines (via KVM) and lightweight containers (via LXC). You can also extend it with open-source add-ons for networking, storage, automation, and security. In this post, we’ll walk through the major stages of repatriation and show you how to build your own Proxmox-based solution—without missing out on the perks of a public cloud. Throughout, we’ll highlight how our team can design, implement, and manage this approach so you can enjoy a smooth transition.

For those playing at home, this is going to feel really familiar. It’s effectively the inverse of the ~50 cloud migration assessments you read 5 years ago.

The first step in any repatriation project is to take a good, hard look at which services you’re running in the cloud. You might be surprised at how many managed databases, serverless functions, or load balancers you’ve spun up over time. Conversely, you may be surprised at just how little of the cloud you’re using.

1. Check All Your Resources

• Full List: Gather up all your instances, storage buckets, databases, and serverless bits and pieces (like AWS Lambda).
• Sort by Environment: Work out which resources serve dev, test, staging, or production.

2. Usage Patterns and Costs

• Where’s the Money Going?: Look at your main spends—maybe big GPU instances or data egress fees.
• Analyse the Size: Record the configurations and capacities of these services.
• Estimate Costs: The data above will guide your hardware budget and help you figure out power, cooling, and staffing (protip: us) if you move workloads home. Based on your scope above, you can also estimate egress costs for pulling your own data out.

3. Dependencies & Integrations

• Service Chains: If you’ve got event-driven setups, map them out thoroughly so you don’t break anything when migrating.
• Managed Databases: Work out how to shift RDS or Spanner over to your own Proxmox-based VMs (e.g. PostgreSQL, MariaDB).

4. Clean Up Redundancies

• Consolidate: Take the chance to retire old services that aren’t doing much for you anymore.

How Proxmox Helps

• Proxmox VE lets you manage VMs, containers, and storage from one tidy interface.

Our Expertise

We’ll handle a full “cloud landscape review” and map out how to replicate or improve your current cloud setup on Proxmox. We’ll deal with the grunt work of matching your dependencies and managed services.

Not every workload is a perfect match for your data centre. You need to compare performance, costs, and compliance—and see whether Proxmox (plus any needed add-ons) can tick all the boxes.

1. Cost & TCO Analysis

• CapEx vs. OpEx: Public cloud charges you bit by bit, but buying hardware for Proxmox is an upfront investment that might save you down the line. Depending on your hardware provider, you might be able to access a leasing arrangement and achieve a blend of CapEx and OpEx.
• Resource Tuning: With Proxmox, you can fine-tune CPU, RAM, and storage allocations for your specific needs. You are not restricted to “T-Shirt” sizing.

2. Performance & Latency

• High-Throughput Apps: Real-time analytics, HPC, or anything that needs super-fast networking might do better on-site.
• Local Data Access: Going on-prem can reduce data-transfer delays, plus save on those hefty egress charges.

3. Data Gravity

• Big Data: Constantly shifting massive datasets between your users and the cloud can cost a bomb.
• App Clusters: If several apps share the same data, hosting them together in Proxmox can boost performance.

4. Compliance & Security Requirements

• Regulations: If you’re dealing with HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or GDPR data, on-prem might make auditing simpler.
• Custom Security: Proxmox is open-source, so you can add your own security features anywhere you like.

5. Disaster Recovery & Availability

• Proxmox HA & Replication: Proxmox has a built-in High Availability setup. If one server dies, your workloads can spin up on another.
• Proxmox Backup Server: Full-featured orchestrator and repository for your Proxmox VM backups.
• Meeting SLAs: Design it properly, and you might match or surpass cloud uptime promises.

6. SLA Alignment

• Performance Guarantees: Proxmox gives you real-time metrics and settings to fine-tune performance.

How Proxmox Helps

• Proxmox plays nicely with Ceph, ZFS, and other open-source tools to handle high I/O or strict compliance demands.
• Proxmox provides a well-integrated and fully capable backup solution for your retention and data protection requirements.

Our Expertise

We’ll do a deep dive on your workloads, focusing on security, performance, and compliance. Then we’ll architect the Proxmox environment—complete with your choice of open-source storage or tools—to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Next, you’ll need to design an on-prem setup that does the job—without blowing out your budget. Right-sizing with Proxmox means balancing capacity, cost, and performance.

1. Scalability vs. Cost

• Cluster Building: Plan your Proxmox cluster for both current loads and future growth. You can always add more servers as you go.
• Hybrid Solutions: If you have massive traffic spikes now and then, you can stay partly in the public cloud for those peaks.

2. Hardware Selection

• CPU & GPU: Proxmox supports GPU passthrough for AI, ML, or design workloads. Just make sure your servers have the right virtualisation features (Intel VT-d or AMD-Vi).
• Storage: Go with Ceph or ZFS for robust, scalable storage. A tiered approach (SSD + HDD) can strike the perfect balance between price and performance.
• Networking: 25GbE or 40GbE can seriously cut down latency.

3. Data Centre Logistics

• Location: If your users are mostly local, hosting nearby reduces latency.
• Power & Cooling: Factor in energy usage, UPS setups, and decent cooling to avoid hardware meltdowns.

How Proxmox Helps

• Proxmox VE runs well on commodity x86 hardware, so you’ve got plenty of hardware options.

Our Expertise

We’ll design the whole stack—servers, storage, networking, plus the Proxmox cluster config. We’ll also handle testing and integration so you know everything’s rock-solid.

One of the biggest reasons to bring workloads back in-house is to gain tighter control over data and infrastructure. Proxmox’s open foundations mean you can customise your security approach as much as you like.

1. Identity and Access Management

• Central Authentication: Use LDAP, Active Directory, or other IdPs to control who can log in.
• Granular RBAC: Proxmox lets you set role-based permissions so staff only see what they need to.

2. Data Sovereignty

• Encrypt at Rest: Use ZFS native encryption or encrypted volumes in LVM. Ceph also supports data encryption.
• Audit Logging: Forward logs from Proxmox to something like Elastic Stack or Graylog for easy compliance checks.

3. Zero-Trust & Network Segmentation

• Virtual Networks: Deploy Open vSwitch or Linux bridges for VLANs or VXLAN setups.
• Micro-Segmentation: Combine Proxmox with open-source firewalls (like OPNsense, pfSense) to isolate workloads.

How Proxmox Helps

• Because Proxmox is fully open source, you can dig into every corner for maximum customisation and security.

Our Expertise

We’ll implement encryption, network segmentation, and logging solutions, and we’ve got the know-how to handle compliance frameworks like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and Essential 8.

One of the big draws of public cloud is automation. But a Proxmox-based environment, combined with the right open-source tools, can be just as slick.

1. Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)

• Terraform Provider: Automate creation of VMs, containers, networking, and storage in Proxmox.
• Ansible or SaltStack: Keep configs consistent, manage patches, and deploy software across your cluster.

2. Monitoring & Alerting

• Prometheus & Grafana: Collect real-time usage data from Proxmox, show it off in Grafana dashboards.
• Alerting: Integrate with Alertmanager, Opsgenie, or similar for proactive health checks.

3. Lifecycle Management

• Proxmox Backup Server: Schedule regular backups for VMs and containers (deduplication built in).
• Automatic Updates: Use your IaC or config management tools to roll out kernel and hypervisor patches smoothly.

How Proxmox Helps

• Proxmox VE has a handy REST API, so you can tie it into continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

Our Expertise

We’ll set up your IaC pipelines and monitoring environment, making sure your Proxmox cluster is as easy to handle as any public cloud. We take care of the entire monitoring/alerting stack so you can focus on what matters—your apps.

Repatriation doesn’t mean turning your back on the cloud forever. A hybrid or multi-cloud approach can give you the best of both worlds.

1. Hybrid Strategies

• Cloud Bursting: If you run into unexpected peaks, keep your link to AWS, Azure, or GCP open for short-term expansions.
• Offsite DR: Replicate or back up your Proxmox environment to a second data centre (or a smaller public cloud setup) for solid disaster recovery.

2. Containers and Kubernetes

• K8s on Proxmox: Spin up clusters like K3s, MicroK8s, or even full-blown Kubernetes on Proxmox VMs or LXC.
• Microservices Flexibility: Keep your apps portable, so you can switch between on-prem and the public cloud as needed.

3. Advanced Workloads

1. AI/ML: Tap into GPU passthrough for machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch.
2. Edge Computing: Deploy smaller Proxmox nodes in regional offices or other edge locations, syncing back to your main cluster.

How Proxmox Helps

• Being based on standard KVM and LXC tech, Proxmox slots easily into hybrid or multi-cloud strategies.

Our Expertise

We’ll guide you on how to blend your private Proxmox cloud with public cloud resources, or integrate container orchestration like Kubernetes if that’s the plan. We also stick around for ongoing support, making sure your environment scales as you grow.

Conclusion

Repatriating your workloads can save a heap in predictable costs, improve security, and boost performance—especially for data-heavy or compliance-driven use cases. But to really nail it, you’ll need a structured plan. That means auditing your public cloud usage, pinpointing the workloads that benefit from on-prem, sizing your Proxmox cluster correctly, and weaving in open-source security and automation.

Proxmox VE is a top-notch choice to underpin your repatriation because it combines straightforward clustering with KVM and LXC, plus native ties to Ceph, Terraform, and Ansible. Of course, the secret sauce is making it all hum together the right way. That’s where we step in. Our team can do the heavy lifting—from designing a hardware layout and spinning up a cluster to automating and monitoring your environment—so you get that cloud-like experience without vendor lock-in or surprise bills.

If you’re keen to explore how a Proxmox-based private cloud could transform your infrastructure—and keep that “cloud feel” while having full control—get in touch with us today.

About Us

We’re experts in end-to-end open-source infrastructure solutions. We handle everything from Proxmox cluster design and Ceph storage to setting up automated pipelines and ongoing management. We’ll customise a high-performance setup that fits your needs like a glove.

Ready to get started with your own Proxmox-powered private cloud? Reach out and let’s talk about how we can make it happen.