Abstract: A virtual container includes an application computer program and metadata representing the operating system requirements. The virtual container is stored on a computer-readable storage medium for delivery to an end user for copying to a target computing device. The virtual container is equivalent to a virtual appliance minus an operating system. The virtual container is executable on an existing logical partition (LPAR) of the target computing device that provides a virtual operating system for the application of the virtual container, where the virtual container is specifically executable within a workload partition (WPAR) of the LPAR. The virtual container is also executable on a new LPAR of the target computing device, where the end user provides a guest operating system to run within the new partition for the virtual container, such that addition of the guest operating system to the virtual container renders the virtual container as a virtual appliance.