Can Azure VMs allow for nested VMWare and VirtualBox VMs?

Question

As the title states, we are after using Azure as a replacement for our virtual testbed.

We need a place where we can test our products inside different virtual environments. I could find some answers on VirtualBox, but I could not find any for VMWare as Microsoft hosts a VMWare product, but this is not what we want/need, as it will involve the creation and deletion of VMs on a daily basis.

Answer 1

Hello @Reece Blythe ,

Normally you could install a VMware ESXi host using tools like Intel-VT but for this you would need to have access to the underlying CPU hardware. Since you do not have control over that in an Azure environment you will not be able to install a VMware ESXi host in an Azure VM.
Nest virtualization is supported on

Hyper-V(Windows 10 & Windows Server 2016) : Yes
Virtual box : Yes
VMware : No

Possibly, the azure VMware solution might help for the testing as well, in case you are completely moving your prod/test environment to azure. Reference : https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/azure-vmware/

(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Answer 2

Hi @Reece Blythe ,

nested virtualization in Azure is possible using Hyper-V: https://azure.microsoft.com/de-de/blog/nested-virtualization-in-azure/
I am not sure if VMware or VirtualBox is an official supported scenario.

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten