They asked for recommendations…

You want proper Kubernetes. Kube is for learning and testing purposes only. In Kubernetes there are plenty of different Ingress services available depending on your provider. I would look into something like Traefik or Metallb

You need something like HAproxy or Traefik

This will blow up in your face. You know enough to be dangerous but no enough to know that uptime is very hard.

AWS or Azure really isn’t that expensive if you are just running a VM with some containers. You don’t need to over think it. Create a VM and spin up some docker containers.

This is so true. You can’t expect your home server to ever be compatible to enterprise setups. Companies who have stuff on prem are still paying for redundant hardware and software which requires money and skill to maintain.

You aren’t going to get high reliability unless you spend big time. Instead, could you just offer uptime during business hours? Maybe give yourself a window to do planned changes.

This is a rabbit hole that’s going to be very expensive. Caddy isn’t going to do what you are wanting. You likely need enterprise systems which are complex and require at least 3 machines.

I would use AWS or Azure instead

I’d rather not use something created by borderline terrorists

MSN is kind of a joke

I does though since there is the added overhead.

You want hardware that is designed for networking. Networking pulls the CPU away from other things. It might be fine if you only ran a router in Proxmox but that’s about it.

Also, good wireless hardware is needed for any decent speeds. You want good antennas connected to hardware that has MU-MIMO. It is also important to pay attention to the Wireless version. (You want at least WiFi 5 if not 6)

Get a better CPU?

These days almost all hardware is compatible with 802.11s

You want a dedicated Firewall and at least one access point. Your USB adapter is not designed to support lots of devices. It almost certainly has one channel.

Better hardware is not a VM in Proxmox. You want quality gear with each component doing one job.

That’s funny

Anyway you know what you have to do (embarrass her)

Darmok on the ocean, Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, Darmok and Jalad on the ocean

The only advise I can give you is make a people network for yourself. Make connections everywhere since life is more about who you know than what you know.

You want to give honest feedback. Don’t burn bridges.

$4,000 seems like a lot to me. Then again, my budget was like $200.

I would start by setting yourself a smaller budget. Learn with cheaper investments before you screw up big. Obviously $200 is probably a bit low but you could build something simple for around $500. Focus on upgrade ability. Once you have a stable system up skill and reflect on what you learned. Once you have a bit more knowledge build a second and third system and then complete a Proxmox cluster. It might be overkill but having three nodes gives a lot of flexibility.

One thing I will add. Make sure you get quality enterprise storage. Don’t cheap out since the lower tier drives will have performance issues with heavier workloads. Ideally you should get enterprise SSD’s.

It is a GUI but it really helps me wrap my head around building Kubernetes deployments. Technically you could use a combination of podman and kubectl to do something similar but with Podman desktop it is all integrated which is nice.