Predictive Resource Management in the Computing Continuum: Transfer Learning from Virtual Machines to Containers using Transformers

Efficient workload forecasting is a key enabler of modern AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations), supporting proactive and autonomous resource management across the computing continuum, from edge environments to large-scale cloud infrastructures. In this paper, we propose a Temporal Transformer architecture for CPU utilization prediction, designed to capture both short-term fluctuations and long-range temporal dependencies in workload dynamics. The model is first pretrained on a large-scale Microsoft Azure VM dataset and subsequently fine-tuned on the Alibaba container dataset, enabling effective transfer learning across heterogeneous virtualization environments. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves high predictive accuracy while maintaining a compact model size and inference times compatible with real-time operation. Qualitative analyses further highlight the model’s ability to reproduce workload patterns with high fidelity. These findings indicate that the proposed Temporal Transformer constitutes a lightweight and accurate forecasting component for next-generation AIOps pipelines, suitable for deployment across both cloud and edge intelligence scenarios.