A DOCKER container operating method and apparatus to operate, in a DOCKER container using a simple and efficient method, an application previously established in a virtual machine. A virtual machine image corresponding to a to-be-executed application is obtained according to an identifier of the to-be-executed application included in a received execution command. Metadata information of the virtual machine image and layer data corresponding to the DOCKER container may be read from all layer data in the virtual machine image, and the layer data corresponding to the DOCKER container is layer data required for operating the DOCKER container corresponding to the to-be-executed application. The DOCKER container corresponding to the to-be-executed application operates according to the read metadata information of the virtual machine image and the read layer data corresponding to the DOCKER container.