Virtualizing a couple of hundred?

Question

Virtualization

The task is as follows: to create a virtualized domain consisting of 100+ machines for testing pre-releases of software in as close to real conditions as possible.

I looked at the esxi documentation, we die at 160 according to the documents, it becomes very expensive for the pieces of iron around 80 already.

I am interested in any proposals for creating such a park. It is necessary to virtualize xp and windows 7 on the minimum parameters.

Answer 1

For VMware vSphere 5, 160 is the maximum number of logical processors (sockets*cores*Hyper Threading) on ​​a single virtualization host. The maximum number of vCPUs (virtual processors) is 2048. For workstations, an acceptable consolidation ratio is 7:1 or 8:1 (number of virtual processors to one physical core). For hundreds of desktops (1 vCPU, 512 MB of memory), a pair of 2-socket quad-core servers with 32 GB each will suffice. If you use servers with a large number of sockets, cores in the processor, then one server may be enough (but it all depends on the nature of the load inside the VM).
But the main bottleneck here will most likely not be the processor and memory, but the disk subsystem (it must provide the necessary IOPS for the operation of virtual machines).
PS if the machines are needed for a short time, then why not use the services of some "cloud" provider?

Answer 2

Wouldn't it be more correct to test in real conditions with correct feedback?

Answer 3

do you need all 100+ machines running at the same time? maybe something over the snapshots is enough?

Answer 4

@mr_jok On real hardware, we test regressively before the actual release. I would like to virtualize for testing at an earlier stage and the ability to experiment with configurations more dynamically.
@omnimod Very interesting, is it possible to rent a cloud for a week to turn a couple hundred, test and roll everything up before the new release? Details?
@rPman Yep, all at the same time.