What is ideal number of remote agent on a single server (32GB, 8 CPU) and how many builds (average complexity) they may support?

[GleeProject]

We have a variety of project across technologies, now currently we have a small server dedicated for each project for running a remote agent. Since the number of projects are fairly large and so is the number of builds.

looking for recommendation around few dedicated servers for build agents.

[Przemek Bruski · Accepted solution]

It's a hard question. Assuming you use Maven, take 0.75 GB as memory requirement. This is how many agents you can have, but they will slow each other down if you run them on 8 physical cores. 

So, from mem perspective (but you should deduct OS/DB/whatever requirements from that), you should be able to run 40ish agents. That's your absolute max.

Now, the question is, how many builds would you actually like to run concurrently? If you run just 8, you will not slow things down for concurrent builds. If your builds are very CPU intensive, I would not go far beyond 8. Assuming sufficient I/O bandwidth, the more I/O your builds require, the more agents you can run (between 8 and 40ish).

Long story short, start with (40+8)/2=24 and monitor the load on that machine. You will most likely need to go lower, but give it a try.

[jvelapol]

For future reference, the only real answer that's "true" is "keep adding more agents until it falls over, then back off by a few".

Though in Data Center edition (which is the only supported Bamboo now), the answer is "zero - you must purchase remote agents instead".

[noamdah]

Check out this link and this link.