After multiple reboots, it turns out that the problematic host's boot arg is "nmi_watchdog=0".
If I set the host with only those:
sdeziel@xeon:~$ cat /proc/cmdline BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-108-generic root=UUID=40a302c9-82d9-4574-ac2f-efcf5c9d126f ro hugepages=3008 kaslr possible_cpus=2 transparent_hugepage=never vsyscall=none
All 17 guests boot fine.
After multiple reboots, it turns out that the problematic host's boot arg is "nmi_watchdog=0".
If I set the host with only those:
sdeziel@xeon:~$ cat /proc/cmdline /boot/vmlinuz- 4.4.0-108- generic root=UUID= 40a302c9- 82d9-4574- ac2f-efcf5c9d12 6f ro hugepages=3008 kaslr possible_cpus=2 transparent_ hugepage= never vsyscall=none
BOOT_IMAGE=
All 17 guests boot fine.