Methods and systems for managing migration of a virtual machine from a source hypervisor to a destination hypervisor. A migration manager of the source hypervisor is provided which is configured to determine a state of the virtual machine and identify multiple state fields as either an optional field or an obligatory field. During restoration of the state by a migration manager of the destination hypervisor, the migration manager reviews the state fields and terminates the state restoration process if an obligatory field is encountered which is not recognized by the migration manager of the destination hypervisor. If during restoration, an optional field that is not recognized is encountered, the migration manager may choose to ignore the optional state field and proceed with the restoration process.