Using virtual machine containers in a virtualized computing platform

The method of 1, further comprising:

• determining that a second application is to run in the same virtual machine as one or more other applications;
• responsive to the determining, locating a second parent virtual machine template that includes containers that contain the one or more other applications;
• forking the second parent virtual machine template to create a second child virtual machine template;
• instantiating a second container in the second child virtual machine template;
• and
• installing the second application in the second container.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores instructions that are executable by a virtualized computing system, the virtualized computing system supporting the execution of a plurality of virtual machines, each virtual machine supporting the execution of one or more applications therein, and each application executing within a container that isolates the application executing therein from other processes executing on the virtualized computing system, and where the instructions, when executed, cause the virtualized computing system to perform a method of creating a hierarchy of virtual machine templates, the method comprising:

• instantiating a first parent virtual machine template having a guest operating system and a first container;
• determining a first application to be run in a container;
• forking the first parent virtual machine template to create a first child virtual machine template, the first child virtual machine template including a replica of the first container, wherein the guest operating system of the first parent virtual machine template is mapped to a memory location that overlaps with a memory location of a guest operating system of the first child virtual machine template;
• and
• installing the first application in the replica of the first container.

In a virtualized computing system that supports the execution of a plurality of virtual machines, each virtual machine supporting the execution of one or more applications therein, and each application executing within a container that isolates the application executing therein from other processes executing on the virtualized computing system, a method of deploying containerized applications for execution within virtual machines, the method comprising:

• receiving from a requestor a request to execute an application;
• locating a first virtual machine template having a container configured to execute the application;
• forking the first virtual machine template to create a first child virtual machine that includes a replica of the container;
• and
• launching the application to execute within the first child virtual machine.