1. An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a memory coupled to the at least one processor; a cloud manager residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, the cloud manager comprising: a host monitor mechanism that determines number of CPUs available on a plurality of host computer systems to which virtual machines could be deployed and that further determines number of hardware threads supported by each CPU on the plurality of host computer systems; a host selection mechanism that receives a virtual machine (VM) request that includes a number of virtual CPUs and a hardware multithreading parameter that specifies whether hardware multithreading is required, and when hardware multithreading is required, specifies a minimum number of hardware threads per core, wherein the host selection mechanism selects one of the plurality of host computer systems that satisfies the hardware multithreading parameter and that includes a number of CPUs with a number of hardware threads that satisfies the number of virtual CPUs in the VM request; and a virtual CPU (vCPU) placement mechanism that uses the hardware multithreading parameter to place a plurality of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) on the selected host computer system.