Abstracting communication with a plurality of containers. Each container encapsulates or hosts a module (e.g., a web service, a database, etc.) associated with a distributed application. A meta-container communicates with drivers that interface with each of the containers. The meta-container represents an abstraction and a virtualization of the containers in the hierarchy. Each container may also be a meta-container for other containers. The recursion and layered hierarchy provide flexible, extensible, and efficient management of the distributed application.