diff --git a/test-requirements.txt b/test-requirements.txt
index f703e8b1b3a..c71dddee1e2 100644
--- a/test-requirements.txt
+++ b/test-requirements.txt
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ pytest!=7.3.2
 
 pytest-cov
 pytest-mock
+pytest-xdist
 setuptools
 jsonschema
 responses
diff --git a/tests/integration_tests/conftest.py b/tests/integration_tests/conftest.py
index 5365b07a5a9..cba33601d36 100644
--- a/tests/integration_tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/integration_tests/conftest.py
@@ -39,6 +39,11 @@
 log.addHandler(logging.StreamHandler(sys.stdout))
 log.setLevel(logging.INFO)
 
+# set log level INFO instead of DEBUG for boto3 and botocore
+# to prevent 1000s of lines of DEBUG log spam that occur during some tests
+logging.getLogger("botocore").setLevel(logging.INFO)
+logging.getLogger("boto3").setLevel(logging.INFO)
+
 platforms: Dict[str, Type[IntegrationCloud]] = {
     "ec2": Ec2Cloud,
     "gce": GceCloud,
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index d20a0e13955..e7f3f6f14c2 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@ passenv =
 deps = 
     -r{toxinidir}/integration-requirements.txt
     -r{toxinidir}/test-requirements.txt
-commands = {envpython} -m pytest --log-cli-level=INFO -m "not hypothesis_slow" -m "not serial" {posargs:tests/integration_tests}
+commands = {envpython} -m pytest --log-cli-level=INFO -n auto -m "not hypothesis_slow" -m "not serial" {posargs:tests/integration_tests}
 passenv =
     CLOUD_INIT_*
     PYCLOUDLIB_*