The Architecture
I architected a unified virtualized server platform for advanced X-ray microscopy systems. A customer-facing Windows virtual machine supported product and vendor applications, while a high-memory RHEL-based Linux environment hosted production EPICS IOCs, SCADA/DCS services, Phoebus interfaces, automation runtimes, and engineering diagnostics.
Proxmox provided isolation between responsibilities while retaining a standardized industrial computing platform. The separation reduced software conflicts, simplified lifecycle management, and created a path for controlled upgrades, snapshots, recovery, redundancy, and future expansion.
Operational Goals
The design supported both connected and air-gapped deployments and reduced reliance on controls services running from individual engineering workstations. Standardizing compute, VM boundaries, network interfaces, and deployment tooling made the platform easier to reproduce and service.
Validation and Roadmap Role
The architecture ran on the Eclipse demonstration system with strong initial results; the principal hardware gap identified during evaluation was the cost of the additional memory needed for the intended consolidation. The Unified Server became a foundation of the broader EPICS-centric controls roadmap, supporting CIDER deployment and future XADA automation, predictive diagnostics, advanced scanning, and digital-twin services.
ENGINEERING INSIGHT
Consolidation should reduce hardware and deployment complexity while virtualization preserves the failure, maintenance, and security boundaries that matter.
Technologies: Proxmox, RHEL, Windows virtualization, EPICS, Phoebus, Docker, CIDER, network segmentation, snapshots, recovery, and air-gapped operation.