What’s New in Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.1

Proxmox Datacenter Manager is Proxmox’s multi-cluster management layer — a separate product that sits above individual Proxmox VE clusters and gives a unified view and management interface across all of them. Where Proxmox VE manages everything within a single cluster, PDM is the layer for organisations running multiple clusters across multiple sites.

PDM 1.0 established the foundation: connect your clusters, see their health, view some resource metrics. Useful, but limited. PDM 1.1 is the release where it starts doing things — provisioning hosts, managing guests across clusters, monitoring Ceph across sites. The gap between “a dashboard” and “a management plane” is closing.

Five capabilities worth the upgrade

The stack and requirements

PDM 1.1 shares the same Debian 13.5 / kernel 7.0 base as Proxmox VE 9.2 and Proxmox Mail Gateway 9.1, keeping the stack consistent across the product family. The minimum PVE 8.4 requirement means most production deployments are compatible without a hypervisor upgrade.

Automated host provisioning

Previously, provisioning a host meant running the interactive installer, configuring the node, then adding it to your cluster — fine occasionally, tedious at scale. PDM 1.1 makes PDM itself the configuration server.

The workflow: an administrator creates an answer file in PDM’s web interface specifying network, disk layout, locale and system parameters. It’s delivered to the target over HTTPS during installation, and access is controlled by per-installation bearer tokens — scoped to one installation, reviewable in the UI, and revocable, so a token for a deployment that never ran can be cleaned up safely.

Subscription management integrates directly: keys can be included in the answer file, so a new host completes its subscription registration automatically during install. Across many sites, removing the post-install subscription step is a real reduction in repetitive admin.

There are deliberate limits in 1.1. Network configuration supports the same options as the Proxmox installer — LACP bonding is on the roadmap but not yet here, and post-boot scripting is still pending. A strong first version, not the finished article.

Central guest & snapshot management

PDM 1.1 introduces cross-remote guest management — view, control, and snapshot QEMU VMs and LXC containers across all connected clusters from one interface. The guest view is either a sortable table across all remotes or a tree grouped by remote, with text filtering to find a guest fast.

From PDM you can start, stop, and migrate VMs between nodes and clusters, manage snapshots (create, rollback, delete, edit descriptions), and resume paused or suspended VMs. The new Resume action covers a real gap — a paused VM previously needed direct cluster access to resume.

That’s the right call: a limited but reliable first version beats a comprehensive feature with edge cases across thousands of cluster configurations. The operations shipped in 1.1 are the ones most commonly needed from a central plane.

Unified Ceph monitoring

For Ceph-backed storage across multiple clusters, PDM 1.1 delivers what was missing: a single dashboard aggregating Ceph health, capacity and performance from every connected hyper-converged environment. A five-site Ceph deployment was previously five browser tabs and five context switches; now it’s one view covering:

• Cluster health status
• Capacity utilisation
• Performance metrics
• OSD status, every disk
• Monitor & manager node status
• Metadata server state
• Storage pool inventory
• CephFS details

Dashboard gauges & the world map

PDM 1.1 extends the dashboard with gauge-based resource widgets — CPU, memory and storage utilisation across all remotes — plus RRD graphs that now include PDM’s own host metrics. The gap where PDM could report on your clusters but not itself is closed.

The world map widget is the most visually distinct addition: remotes can be assigned geographic coordinates and rendered as pins on a map — a literal overview of where your infrastructure lives. For a single-site deployment it’s a curiosity; for infrastructure spread across multiple Australian cities, or with overseas connectivity in scope, it’s a genuinely useful at-a-glance view.

Central subscription registry

PDM 1.1 adds a subscription registry to manage keys centrally across all connected remotes. Keys can be viewed, assigned to specific remotes, and bundled into provisioning answer files for automatic registration during deployment. Across many sites, having subscription state visible and manageable in one place cuts the overhead of tracking what’s registered where.

Getting to 1.1

PDM 1.1 is available now via ISO installer and APT package upgrade.

• From PDM 1.0: upgrade via apt or through the PDM web interface.
• From PDM alpha releases: follow the documented upgrade procedure — this path is supported.
• Fresh install: ISO from the Proxmox downloads page; PDM can also run as a VM on an existing PVE host, though a dedicated host or separate infrastructure is preferred for production.
• Connectivity: reverse proxies are not supported between PDM and managed remotes — use WireGuard or OpenVPN tunnelling for encrypted cross-site connectivity.

Minimum requirements for managed infrastructure: Proxmox VE 8.4 or later and Proxmox Backup Server 3.4 or later. If a multi-site rollout is on your roadmap, PIP’s Proxmox team can help scope where PDM fits.

Common questions