Patent ID: 8713566

Claim:
A method comprising: permitting a user, by a computing device, to select an application computer program other than an operating system or a virtual machine to include in a virtual container that will not include any operating system or virtual machine; permitting the user, by the computing device, to select operating system requirements for the application computer program; generating the virtual container, by the computing device, the virtual container including the application computer program and metadata representing the operating system requirements, and not including any operating system or virtual machine; and, storing the virtual container, by the computing device, on a computer-readable storage medium for delivery of the virtual container to an end user for copying to a target computing device of the end user, wherein the virtual container for the application computer program is a single virtual container representing the operating system requirements for multiple operating systems and versions thereof, wherein the application computer program within the virtual container has already been preinstalled on a workload partition (WPAR) of a logical partition (LPAR) and subsequently encapsulated such that the application computer program is divorced from an operating system of the WPAR of the LPAR on which the application program was preinstalled, wherein the application computer program is executable on a guest operating system after having been copied thereto without having to be formally installed, wherein the virtual container is such that at the target computing device: the end user selects a first partition of the target computing device, the first partition providing a virtual operating system for the application computer program; the end user selects a second partition of the target computing device, the second partition having the guest operating system; where the virtual operating system of the first partition satisfies the operating system requirements for the application computer program, the target computing device copies the application computer program within the first partition so that the application computer program runs on the virtual operating system; where the guest operating system of the second partition satisfies the operating system requirements for the application computer program, the target computing device copies the application computer program within the second partition so that the application computer program runs on the guest operating system of the partition, and wherein addition of the virtual operating system or the guest operating system to the virtual container renders the virtual container as the virtual appliance.