The model of a single container within a VM just adds overhead. The ideal case would be to remove the container layer and have the application(s) within the container run directly in the VM (which hopefully only includes the libs and OS modules needed for the app to run, and nothing more).
This is the approach we take at kraft.cloud (based on the LF Unikraft project): use Dockerfiles to specify app/filesystem, and at deploy automatically convert to a lightweight VM (unikernel) without the container runtime/layer.
This is the approach we take at kraft.cloud (based on the LF Unikraft project): use Dockerfiles to specify app/filesystem, and at deploy automatically convert to a lightweight VM (unikernel) without the container runtime/layer.