CPU-Feature-Aware Virtual Machine Migration in Heterogeneous Environments

Migrating virtual machines (VMs) across physically heterogeneous hosts is a fundamental operation in cloud computing and distributed systems, yet it remains brittle when source and destination processors expose different CPU feature sets. We propose a per-application, dynamic approach: a C-based runtime profiler executes on the source Xen dom0, instruments the running guest (domU), and computes the minimal set of CPU features actually exercised by the target workload. A companion shell script validates this set by iteratively disabling each feature and verifying that the workload remains functional. The resulting mask is injected into the Xen cpuid configuration on the destination host before the VM is transferred. Validated on two heterogeneous Intel hosts with a PostgreSQL 12 OLTP benchmark, the approach reduces the exposed CPU feature count from 47 to 12 flags while achieving zero application-level errors after migration.