Virtual machine reports a "BUG: soft lockup" (or multiple at the same time)

Issue

• Virtual machine guest suffers multiple soft lockups at the same time
• We are experiencing kernel panic due to softlockup.

• Logs show messages like (examples from different sources):

  BUG: soft lockup - CPU#6 stuck for 73s! [flush-253:0:1207]
  BUG: soft lockup - CPU#7 stuck for 74s! [processname:15706]
  BUG: soft lockup - CPU#5 stuck for 63s! [processname:25582]
  BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 64s! [proceessname:15789]
  
  --or--
  
  <time> <hostname> kernel: NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#6 stuck for 25s! [ksoftirqd/6:38]
  <time> <hostname> kernel: NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#7 stuck for 22s! [ksoftirqd/7:43]
  <time> <hostname> kernel: NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#7 stuck for 24s! [NetworkManager:945]
  <time> <hostname> kernel: NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#7 stuck for 22s! [watchdog/7:41]  
  

  The following line may (or not) also be logged:

  hrtimer: interrupt took NUMBER ns