01 / VIRTUALIZATION & HCI
Compute & Hyperconvergence
Six generations of virtualization. One enduring commitment to running too many VMs.
Proxmox VEVirtualBoxHyper-V ClusteringVMware vCenterNutanix AHVAzure Local / HCI
INDEPENDENTLY OVERENGINEERED SINCE 2013
Tomorrow's
technology.
Yesterday's
decisions.
Pawsitively Innovating Tomorrow, Yesterday.
Enterprise-grade ambition. Home-lab-grade budget. A fiercely independent technology laboratory advancing the frontiers of automation, infrastructure, and strategically scheduled naps.
ISO 9001-ISH ◆ 9 LIVES AVAILABLE ◆ ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY
CHMALABS // SYSTEM STATUS OPTIMISTICALLY OPERATIONAL
99.999%*ASPIRATIONAL UPTIME
09REDUNDANT LIVES
∞SYNERGIES IDENTIFIED
0BLAME ACCEPTED
* Service level objectives are inspirational and should not be construed as commitments.
01 / CORPORATE OVERVIEW
Serious infrastructure.
Questionable supervision.
CHMALABS is a proudly independent technology laboratory where complex infrastructure meets simple curiosity—and occasionally a cat walking across a keyboard.
We explore self-hosting, systems engineering, automation, and observability with the conviction that anything worth doing is worth containerizing, monitoring, documenting, and eventually rebuilding from scratch.
⌁ Privately held. Publicly confusing. Operationally caffeinated.
02 / OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Our mission is clear.
Our methodology is not.
At CHMALABS, we leverage cutting-edge, cloud-native, feline-driven synergies to maximize purrformance, minimize accountability, and proactively disrupt systems that were working perfectly fine.
Through strategic innovation, aggressive automation, and the occasional unauthorized nap, we empower our infrastructure to achieve five-nines availability, nine-lives resiliency, and zero measurable responsibility when neither is achieved.
Because at CHMALABS, we don't just think outside the box. We sit in it, automate it, containerize it, and then knock it off the table.
— THE CHMALABS EXECUTIVE FELINE COMMITTEE
03 / INFRASTRUCTURE EVOLUTION
13 years of questionable
infrastructure decisions.
Six virtualization platforms. Thirteen years. Countless rebuilds. Still no change control.
EST. 2013 ↗CONTINUOUS REPLATFORMING DIVISION
- 01 / ORIGINS
VirtualBox
The humble beginning. One machine, several virtual ones, and entirely too much confidence.
- 02 / WINDOWS ERA
Windows Hyper-V
Windows Server virtualization grew into clustered infrastructure. Redundancy entered the chat.
- 03 / ENTERPRISE ERA
VMware vCenter
vSphere management and enterprise-grade infrastructure. Now with more consoles.
- 04 / HCI ERA
Nutanix AHV
Hyperconverged infrastructure, where compute and storage learned to share.
- 05 / HYBRID ERA
Azure Local
Formerly Azure Stack HCI. On-premises infrastructure with cloud ambitions.
- 06 / CURRENT PLATFORM
Proxmox VE CURRENT
Today's lab foundation. Same curiosity. Better containers. Rebuilds still available on demand.
Platform sequence reflects CHMALABS history; individual migration dates are intentionally omitted.
04 / ENGINEERING CAPABILITIES & TECHNOLOGY STACK
Innovation in
controlled chaos.
From enterprise infrastructure to automation and observability: systems we've built, operated, explored, or occasionally had to rebuild.
02 / CLOUD & CONTAINERS
Cloud-Native Infrastructure
Cloud resources, clusters, and container workloads across more platforms than the budget requested.
Microsoft AzureAWSAKSECS / FargateKubernetesDockerHelm
03 / AUTOMATION & IAC
Automation & Orchestration
Automating repeatable work and inventing exciting new failure modes in the process.
WindmillTerraformAnsibleAWXGitHub ActionsAzure DevOpsPythonPowerShell
04 / OBSERVABILITY
Monitoring & Telemetry
Graphs, traces, logs, and alerts that explain why a service stopped being optimistic.
SigNozPrometheusGrafanaLokiBlackbox ExporterOpenTelemetryDatadog
05 / SECURITY & OPERATIONS
Identity, Networking & Security
Certificates, access controls, networks, and workflows with very serious-looking approvals.
Microsoft Entra IDCloudflareBitwardenWISeKeyDigiCertJira Service ManagementCisco
06 / DATA & SELF-HOSTING
Data Platforms & Lab Services
Data pipelines, self-hosted media, and enough storage to require a separate meeting.
DatabricksStarburst / TrinoApache AirflowQNAPEmbySonarrRadarrSABnzbd
PLATFORM STATUS: HISTORICAL + CURRENT + EXPERIMENTAL · NOT ALL SYSTEMS ARE ACTIVE SIMULTANEOUSLY
CHMALABS / CORPORATE PHILOSOPHY