RJ Lewandowski

SEA-PUW-BOS-MSP. Go Cougs

[SMB_Cyber @SMB_Cyber]

After working through a number of #Vmware and Hyper-V migrations to #Proxmox, one thing has become pretty clear:

The actual VM migration is usually not the hardest part.

It’s everything around it.

🧵

1/ Most environments have accumulated years of decisions that made sense at the time.

Old networking configs. Storage dependencies. Backup jobs. VMs nobody is completely sure about. Applications with requirements that aren’t documented anywhere.

That’s where most of the interesting work starts.

2/ We’ve generally had the best results by spending more time upfront than people initially expect.

Inventory the environment. Map dependencies. Understand storage and networking. Test the migration process. Have a rollback plan.

Then start moving workloads.

3/ Another thing I’ve learned: there isn’t one right way to structure these projects.

Some teams want us at Technology Architects to run the migration.

Others want us to migrate the first few workloads with them, establish the process, and then let their internal team take over.

I actually like the second model quite a bit when the customer has a capable IT team.

4/ Storage is probably the area where I see the most assumptions carried over from VMware.

Ceph, ZFS, shared storage and local storage all have their place.

But rebuilding the exact same architecture on a different hypervisor isn’t necessarily the right answer.

5/ Same with backups.

Getting the VM running on Proxmox is obviously important.

But I’d rather call the project complete when we’ve tested restores, monitoring, HA, backups and the operational processes around the environment.

6/ One pleasant surprise has been how quickly experienced VMware admins seem to get comfortable with Proxmox once they spend some time with it.

There are obviously differences, but most good infrastructure people pick it up pretty quickly.

7/ We’ve worked on everything from relatively simple clusters to multi-site environments and larger production deployments.

The technical details vary a lot, but the motivation usually sounds pretty similar:

“We want another option besides VMware, but we don’t want to create a new operational headache.”

8/ My biggest takeaway so far:

Treat a Proxmox migration as an opportunity to rethink the environment rather than just moving VMs from hypervisor A to hypervisor B.

A little extra architecture work upfront can eliminate a surprising amount of technical debt.

9/ Still learning something new on pretty much every migration.

Proxmox has its quirks, just like every platform, but I’ve been impressed with how well it fits a lot of the environments we’ve been moving.

[SMB_Cyber @SMB_Cyber]

Ran IT due diligence on an acquisition last month.

On paper: clean.
Financials: solid.
Leadership: sharp.

IT environment?
“Fully managed.”

That phrase should make you nervous.

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@thatch_ai I’m an employer with ~30 employees using Thatch.

One of my employees has had to postpone a critical surgery because his plan unknowingly changed in 2026 to a CA HMO plan.

My COO and I have submitted multiple support tickets and haven’t heard anything.

[email protected]

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@thatch_ai I’m an employer with ~30 employees using Thatch.

One of my employees has had to postpone a critical surgery because his plan unknowingly changed in 2026 to a CA HMO plan.

My COO and I have submitted multiple support tickets and haven’t heard anything.

[email protected]

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@CougarAthFund @CougCollective I would love some feedback. As a die hard Coug, if I want to contribute $10k to WSU and have the greatest impact how would you suggest I allocate the $$? I imagine lots of Cougs are unclear on this given the current state of college athletics.

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

The @Vikings haven’t scored a touchdown since the 3rd quarter of the Packers game… woof

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

#GoCougs

https://t.co/BPMJGLlt9t

https://t.co/I995mXYA51

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@RobinDich See you there!

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@Top100Rick @SentryWorld has to be on this list

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

Does KJ Osborn have more yards of passes dropped than total receiving yards this season? #skol

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

Every Coug fan should be contributing to @CougarAthFund @ @CougCollective after the week that the Cougs have had! We have to do our part!
#GoCougs #CVE

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@ClintFiore RJ - Minneapolis.

My wife and I own a couple of cyber security & IT consulting businesses in the Midwest and Rockies.

Always looking to add another. Looking for great employees and customers

Would love help on developing more financial maturity & modeling to our businesses.

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@CheyCab question for you. I’ll be in Chicago for 24 hours with a toddler. I’d prefer to not rent a car and am wondering if you had any tips on hiring a driver with a car seat for 24 hours? In and out of MDW.

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@CheyCab I drove by at 6:15 and I could hardly tell that there was a car in the picture

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@BenStone_24 Agree with everything you said. I also can’t tell if it’s generally inflammatory content or if it’s targeted at what I find controversial.

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@RobinDich @SmithWSU37 @WSUCougarWBB @DailyEvergreen “All these years”… damn, we old now huh?

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@chap_chats I love the spicy updates! Keep ‘Em coming! With 2 feet of snow in the forecast it might be worth reaching out to some MN firms with your cold outreach this week. ❄️❄️❄️

@GopherAngels
@Bread_ButterVC
@forgenorthmn
@rallyvc

[Al🏈 @al_marquez_]

@barstoolsports Vikings fans every week

[RJ Lewandowski @thatrojoflow]

@chap_chats @robertjweber @Vikings When I saw Rob’s tweet this morning I immediately thought about @rerouted_co and how impressed I’ve been with your traction