During the development of the first version of UNetLab, I dedicated significant time to creating a flexible QEMU/KVM orchestrator. At that time, virtualization-ready images were rare. Choosing a specific QEMU version or parameter could determine the success or failure of virtualizing a particular device.

Years later, the landscape has changed completely: virtualization is almost always an option, as vendors use virtualized environments to create labs. Most vendors now release images for both VMware and QEMU/KVM.

However, IOU remains a topic of interest: a lightweight image simulating a Cisco IOS XE environment. We can think of IOU as a container that doesn’t use standard networking. It could potentially be transformed into a container, but that’s another story.

By foregoing IOU (and Dynamips), we can simplify virtualization management. Specifically, we can rely on an existing hypervisor. For years, I considered ESXi , but after the Broadcom acquisition , I explored other options. After analyzing various environments, including libvirt , I decided on Proxmox  for several reasons:

• It’s a type 2 hypervisor, allowing OS modifications if needed.
• It provides REST APIs, which we need to verify.
• It allows kernel modifications to simulate physical links.
• It’s well-supported and under active development.
• It’s open source.
• It scales horizontally and supports VXLAN.
• It natively supports LXC (though not Docker).

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