Abstract:
A processing device of a container registry receives an indication of a selection of a container provided by the container registry, the container to deploy on a computer system in a hosted environment, the hosted environment comprising software and hardware facilities to execute the plurality of containers in a cloud computing environment, wherein the container is stored in a first repository. The processing device issues a command to create a second repository comprising a copy of the first repository. In response to the command, the processing device creates the second repository and sends the second repository to deploy in the hosted environment, wherein the command causes subsequent changes to the container to be made to the second repository during the deployment in the hosted environment.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/777,583, filed Feb. 26, 2013, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     The embodiments of the disclosure relate generally to platform-as-a-service (PaaS) systems and, more specifically, relate to a shared application store for a PaaS system. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Currently, a variety of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings exist that include software and/or hardware facilities for facilitating the execution of web applications in a cloud computing environment (the “cloud”). Cloud computing is a computing paradigm in which a customer pays a “cloud provider” to execute a program on computer hardware owned and/or controlled by the cloud provider. It is common for cloud providers to make virtual machines hosted on its computer hardware available to customers for this purpose. 
     The cloud provider typically provides an interface that a customer can use to requisition virtual machines and associated resources such as processors, storage, and network services, etc., as well as an interface a customer can use to install and execute the customer&#39;s program on the virtual machines that the customer requisitions, together with additional software on which the customer&#39;s program depends. For some such programs, this additional software can include software components, such as a kernel and an operating system, and/or middleware and a framework. Customers that have installed and are executing their programs “in the cloud” typically communicate with the executing program from remote geographic locations using Internet protocols. 
     PaaS offerings typically facilitate deployment of web applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities, providing the facilities to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web application and service entirely available from the Internet. Typically, these facilities operate as one or more virtual machines (VMs) running on top of a hypervisor in a host server. 
     Current PaaS offerings allow customers to build their own custom applications either by writing code (application development) or by composition (e.g. gears, add-ons, plug-ins, etc). One problem encountered may be difficulty in building and deploying a new application on the PaaS offering. Some customers may not have enough technical know-how to easily accomplish this end product. For instance, to build and deploy an application on a PaaS system, the customer should know what components to build the application with, where to obtain these components, how to add the components to the PaaS platform, and how to configure the application on the PaaS platform. Furthermore, current PaaS offerings do not provide options for a pre-configured application that can be easily deployed and run by a customer without the customer&#39;s involvement in the build and deployment process. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The disclosure will be understood more fully from the detailed description given below and from the accompanying drawings of various embodiments of the disclosure. The drawings, however, should not be taken to limit the disclosure to the specific embodiments, but are for explanation and understanding only. 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a network architecture supporting a shared application store for a PaaS system according to an embodiment of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a PaaS system architecture to receive an application for deployment from a shared application store for the PaaS system according to an embodiment of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 3  is a flow diagram of a method for providing an application from a shared application store for deployment on a PaaS system via a local repository of a user&#39;s device according to an embodiment of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 4  is a flow diagram of a method for providing an application from a shared application store for deployment on a PaaS system via a remote repository associated with an PaaS system account associated with a user that selected the application according to an embodiment of the disclosure; and 
         FIG. 5  illustrates a block diagram of one embodiment of a computer system. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Embodiments of the disclosure provide for a shared application store for a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) system. The shared application store of embodiments of the disclosure provides a selection of published applications that can be implemented via gears on a PaaS system. A customer may access the application store and select an application to deploy on the PaaS system using the customer&#39;s PaaS system account. In some embodiments, the customer may also locally deploy the application on the customer&#39;s own device, with subsequent deployment to the PaaS system via the customer&#39;s local repository. 
     Embodiments of the application store include logic that can fork (e.g., create a copy that references an original) the selected application to the PaaS system locally (at customer&#39;s device) or remotely (at PaaS system remote repository). Because the application is deployed via a fork command, any changes that the customer makes to the deployed application may be tracked and flowed between the deployed copy and the master application copy. These changes may be provided as additional versions of the master application at the application store. 
     Previously, cloud providers allowed customers to build their own custom applications either by writing code (application development) or by composition (e.g. gears, add-ons, plugins, etc). Embodiments of the disclosure differ from that approach by allowing portions of and/or an entire application to be forked, modified, and contributed back to the marketplace of the application store. A variety of advantages result from this implementation, including, but not limited to, an enhanced community experience, ease of installation for users, an opportunity for system administrators (e.g., those who configure and deploy applications but not write applications) to participate in the Cloud Application marketplace, and a better and easier try-before-you-buy experience for users. 
     In one embodiment, a method of the disclosure includes receiving, by a processing device of an application store, an indication of a selection of an application provided by the application store, the application configured for deployment on a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) system, issuing a command to create a copy of a repository associated with the selected application, wherein the command to create the copy further comprises tracking changes made to the copy and flowing the tracked changes to the repository from which the copy originates, and sending a copy of the repository in response to the command to create the copy, wherein the copy of the repository is deployed on the PaaS system for a user that selected the application. 
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a network architecture  100  supporting a shared application store for a PaaS system according to an embodiment of the disclosure. Network architecture  100  includes a client device  110  communicating with an application store server device  105  and a cloud provider system  160  over network  150 . The network  150  may include, for example, the Internet in one embodiment. In other embodiments, other networks, wired and wireless, such as an intranet, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or broadcast network may be used. 
     The client device  110  may be any type of computing device, for example, a device including a processor, a computer-readable medium, and a memory. The client device  110  may be, for example, a personal computer, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, etc. In some embodiments, the client device  110  may be executing a browser application  114  or other application adapted to communicate over Internet related protocols (e.g., TCP/IP and HTTP) and/or display a user interface. While a single client device  110  is shown in  FIG. 1 , network architecture  100  may support a large number of concurrent sessions with many client devices  110 . 
     In one embodiment, client device  110  includes a source code editor application  112  (“editor”) that is used to edit source code of computer programs. An end user of client device  110  may use editor  112  to make and submit code changes to source code of an application for a PaaS system. In one embodiment, the source code is provided to application store server device  105 . 
     Application store server device  105  may be implemented on one or more computing devices including, but not limited to, server devices, desktop computers, laptop computers, mobile devices, and so on. In one embodiment, application store server device  105  receives and stores one or more repositories  145   a - 145   b  for applications. These received repositories  145   a - 145   b  may be stored in a data store  140  of application store server device  105 . In one embodiment, the applications associated with the repositories  145   a - 145   b  may be applications run on a PaaS system. For example, repositories  145   a ,  145   b  include software code implemented via computer-readable instructions that provides one or more gears to be executed by the PaaS system. Each repository  145   a ,  145   b  may include components of a certain application or components of a certain gear that corresponds to an application or to a portion of the application. 
     In one embodiment, a gear is a resource-constrained process space to execute functionality of an application. For example, a gear may include one or more components of a composite application that includes functionality drawn from multiple sources (e.g., functions from other applications or systems). In some embodiments, a gear is established by a node (e.g., a virtual machine (VM)) of the PaaS system with resource boundaries, including a limit and/or designation of the amount of memory, amount of storage, and security types and/or labels to be applied to any functions executed by the gear. In one embodiment, gears may be established using the Linux Containers (LXC) virtualization method. In further embodiments, gears may also be established using cgroups, SELinux™, and kernel namespaces, to name a few examples. 
     In one embodiment, the PaaS system is a multi-tenant PaaS product hosted in a cloud computing environment, such as cloud provider system  160 . The term “multi-tenant” refers to a feature of the PaaS system that hosts multiple different web applications having multiple different owners on a same virtual machine (VM) in the cloud computing environment. In production, such a multi-tenant PaaS system may execute utilizing multiple computing devices to provide multiple tiers of the PaaS system, with a variety of inter-related components and protocols. For example, the multiple tiers of the PaaS system may include a client layer hosting client tools to access the functionality of the PaaS system, a broker layer having multiple broker machines to coordinate and configure initialization of new end user applications, a node layer including nodes (e.g., VM, physical machine, etc.) to host the applications, messaging servers, a data store of a database, a Domain Name Service (DNS) server, and so on. 
     In embodiments of the disclosure, instances  125   a - 125   b  of the applications associated with repositories  145   a - 145   b  can be launched on a virtual machine (VM)  165  of the PaaS system that is hosted by cloud provider system  160 . An end user may interact with and view the application instances  145   a - 145   b  using browser application  114  of client device  110 . 
     In one embodiment, application store server device  105  includes a user interface module  115 , a deployment module  120 , an integration module  130 , and the data store  140  to provide a shared application store to select and deploy pre-existing applications for the PaaS system. User interface module  115  provides a graphical user interface (GUI) displaying one or more already-built and configured applications  145   a - 145   b  available for deployment on a PaaS system. An end user may select one or more of the applications  145   a - 145  via the GUI provided by user interface module  115 . 
     In one embodiment, deployment module  120  receives information identifying an application selected by an end user from a GUI provided by the application store server device  105 . The deployment module  120  may include fork component  122  and PaaS interface component  124 . Fork component  124  may access the repository  145   a ,  145   b  of the selected application from data store  140  and ‘fork’ the application for the end user. In one embodiment, forking is the action of creating a copy that references an original, so that changes can be tracked and flowed between the original (master) and the forked copy. 
     In one embodiment, the data store  140  implements a source code management system, sometimes referred to as “SCM” or revision control system. One example of such an SCM or revision control system is Git, available as open source software. Another example of an SCM system is Mercurial™. The SCM system may provide explicit support for forking operations. For example, the fork component  122  may coordinate with the SCM of data store  140  to cause the SCM to create a copy of a selected repository  145   a ,  145   b  as a new branch, with any later changes of that forked branch being integrated with the main repository  145   a ,  145   b  (Subject to error checking, etc.). In one embodiment, the fork component  122  may be an implementation of the github application. 
     In some embodiments, the fork component  122  interacts with PaaS interface module  124  to cause the forked repository  145   a ,  145   b  to be deployed as an application instance  125   a ,  125   b  on the PaaS system implemented in cloud provider system  160 . In other embodiments, the forked repository  145   a ,  145  is deployed locally on the end user&#39;s client device  100 , for example, on a locally-installed version of the PaaS system (not shown). 
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a PaaS system architecture to receive an application for deployment from a shared application store for the PaaS system according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The PaaS architecture allows users to launch software applications in a cloud computing environment, such as cloud computing environment offered by cloud provide system  160  described with respect to  FIG. 1 . The PaaS system architecture, in one embodiment, includes a client layer  210 , a broker layer  220 , and a node layer  230 . 
     In one embodiment, the components of the PaaS system architecture are in communication, via network  205 , with the PaaS Interface module  124  application store server device  105  of  FIG. 1 . Network  205  may include, for example, the Internet in one embodiment. In other embodiments, other networks, wired and wireless, such as an intranet, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or broadcast network may be used. 
     In one embodiment, the client layer  210  resides on a client machine, such as a workstation of a software developer, and provides an interface to a user of the client machine to a broker layer  220  of the PaaS system  200 . In one embodiment, the client machine is the same as client device  110  described with respect to  FIG. 1 . The broker layer  220  may facilitate the creation and deployment on the cloud (via node layer  230 ) of software applications being deployed by an end user, via application store server device  105  of  FIG. 1 , at client layer  210 . 
     In one embodiment, an end user at client layer  210  may select a fully-configured application from the application store server device  105 . As discussed above, application store server device  105  may fork the stored repository  145  of the selected application. In one embodiment, the stored repository  145  is forked as a local copy directly to the client layer  210 . 
     The client layer  210  includes an SCM system  212  having a local software repository  215   a ,  215   b ,  215   c . In one embodiment, the forked repository may be stored locally at the end user device of client layer  210  as forked app local repo  215   a . The SCM  212  of client layer  210  may also store other local copies of application repos, such as app 1  local repo  215   b  and app  2  local repo  215   c , for example. 
     Distributed SCM systems, such as SCM system  112 , usually include a working directory for making changes, and a local software repository  215   a ,  215   b ,  215   c  for storing the changes for each application associated with the end user of the PaaS system  200 . The packaged software application can then be “pushed” from the local SCM repository  215   a ,  215   b ,  215   c  to a remote SCM repository  233   a ,  233   b ,  233   c  at the node(s)  232   a ,  232   b ,  232   c  running the associated application. From the remote SCM repository  233   a ,  233   b ,  233   c , the code may be edited by others with access, or the application may be executed by a machine. Other SCM systems work in a similar manner. 
     In some embodiment, PaaS Interface module  124  may interact with client layer  210  and broker layer  220  to cause a selected application repo  145  to be forked and deployed remotely on the PaaS system. Further description of this implementation is discussed below after introduction of components of the PaaS network architecture. 
     The client layer  210 , in one embodiment, also includes a set of command tools  214  that a user can utilize to create, launch, and manage applications. In one embodiment, the command tools  214  can be downloaded and installed on the user&#39;s client machine, and can be accessed via a command line interface or a graphical user interface, or some other type of interface. In one embodiment, the command tools  214  expose an application programming interface (“API”) of the broker layer  220  and perform other applications management tasks in an automated fashion using other interfaces, as will be described in more detail further below in accordance with some embodiments. 
     In one embodiment, the broker layer  220  acts as middleware between the client layer  210  and the node layer  230 . The node layer  230  includes the nodes  232   a - c  on which gears  235   a - c  of software applications are provisioned and executed. As previously discussed, a gear  235   a - c  may include a resource-constrained process space to execute functionality of an application. In some embodiments, a gear  235   a - c  is established by a node  232   a - c  with resource boundaries, including a limit and/or designation of the amount of memory, amount of storage, and security types and/or labels to be applied to any functions executed by the gear. In one embodiment, gears  235   a - c  may be established using the Linux Containers (LXC) virtualization method. In further embodiments, containers may also be established using cgroups, SELinux™, and kernel namespaces, to name a few examples. 
     In one embodiment, each node  232   a - c  is a VM provisioned by an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider. In other embodiments, the nodes  232   a - c  may be physical machines or VMs residing on a single physical machine. In one embodiment, the broker layer  220  is implemented on one or more machines, such as server computers, desktop computers, etc. In some embodiments, the broker layer  220  may be implemented on one or more machines separate from machines implementing each of the client layer  210  and the node layer  230 , or may implemented together with the client layer  210  and/or the node layer  230  on one or more machines, or some combination of the above. 
     In some embodiments, cartridges instances (originating from cartridge library  237 , as discussed below) for an application may execute in gears  235   a - c  dispersed over more than one node  232   a - c , as shown with forked application gear A  235   a  on node  232   a  and forked application gear B  235   b  on node  232   b . In other embodiments, cartridge instances for an application  305  may also run in one or more gears  235   a - c  on the same node  232   a - c.    
     In one embodiment, the broker layer  220  includes a broker  222  that coordinates requests from the client layer  210  with actions to be performed at the node layer  230 . One such request is new application creation. In one embodiment, when a user, using the command tools  214  at client layer  210 , requests the creation of a new application, or some other action to manage the application, the broker  222  first authenticates the user using an authentication service  224 . In one embodiment, the authentication service may comprise custom authentication methods, or standard protocols such as SAML, Oauth, etc. Once the user has been authenticated and allowed access to the system by authentication service  224 , the broker  222  uses a server orchestration system  226  to collect information and configuration information about the nodes  232   a - c.    
     In one embodiment, the broker  222  uses the Marionette Collective™ (“MCollective™”) framework available from Puppet Labs™ as the server orchestration system  226 , but other server orchestration systems may also be used. The server orchestration system  226 , in one embodiment, functions to coordinate server-client interaction between multiple (sometimes a large number of) servers. In one embodiment, the servers being orchestrated are nodes  232   a - c , which are acting as application servers and web servers. 
     For example, if the broker  222  wanted to shut down all applications  235   a - c  on all even numbered nodes out of 100,000 nodes, the broker  222  may provide one command to the server orchestration system  226 . Then, the server orchestration system  226  would generate and distribute a message to all nodes  232   a - c  to shut down all applications  235   a - c  if the node  232   a - c  is even, using a messaging and queuing system. Thus, in one embodiment, the broker  222  manages the business logic and model representing the nodes  232   a - c  and the applications (implemented via gears  235 - 237   a, b ) residing on the nodes, and acts as a controller that generates the actions requested by users via an API of the client tools  214 . The server orchestration system  226  then takes the actions generated by the broker  222  and orchestrates their execution on the many nodes  232   a - c  managed by the system. 
     In one embodiment, the information collected about the nodes  232   a - c  can be stored in a data store  228 . In one embodiment, the data store  228  can be a locally-hosted database or file store, or it can be a cloud based storage service provided by a Software-as- a -Service (SaaS) provider. The broker  222  uses the information about the nodes  232   a - c  and their applications to model the application hosting service and to maintain records about the nodes. In one embodiment, data of a node  232   a - c  is stored in the form of a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) blob or string that maintains key-value pairs to associate a unique identifier, a hostname, a list of applications, and other such attributes with the node. 
     In embodiments of the disclosure, the PaaS system architecture  200  of  FIG. 2  is a multi-tenant PaaS environment. In a multi-tenant PaaS environment, each node  232   a - c  runs multiple applications (via gears  235   a - c ) that may be owned or managed by different users and/or organizations. As such, a first customer&#39;s deployed applications may co-exist with any other customer&#39;s deployed applications on the same node  232  (VM) that is hosting the first customer&#39;s deployed applications. In some embodiments, portions of an application are run on multiple different nodes  232   a - c . For example, as shown in  FIG. 2 , gears  235   a ,  235   b  of forked application are run in both node  232   a  and node  232   b . Similarly, gears  236   a ,  236   b  application  2  are run in node  232   a  and node  232   c , while gears  237   a ,  237   b  of application  3  are run in node  232   b  and node  232   c.    
     In addition, each node also maintains a cartridge library  237 . The cartridge library  237  maintains multiple software components (referred to herein as cartridges) that may be utilized by gears  235 - 237   a, b  of the applications deployed on node  232   a - c . A cartridge can represent a form of support software (or middleware) providing the functionality, such as configuration templates, scripts, dependencies, to run a gear  235 - 237   a, b  of an application and/or add a feature to an application. In one embodiment, the cartridges support languages such as, but not limited to, JBoss™, PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, and so on. 
     In addition, cartridges may be provided that support databases, such as MySQL™, PostgreSQL™, Mongo™, and others. Cartridges may also be available that support the build and continuous integration environments, such as a Jenkins cartridge. Lastly, cartridges may be provided to support management capabilities, such as PHPmyadmin, RockMongo™, 10gen-mms-agent, cron scheduler, and HAProxy, for example. Adding an instance of a cartridge from cartridge library  237  to a gear  235 - 237   a, b  of an application provides a capability for the application without the customer who owns the application having to administer or update the included capability. 
     As discussed above, embodiments of the disclosure include the PaaS interface module  124  interacting with client layer  210  and broker layer  220  to cause a selected application repo  145  to be forked and deployed remotely on the PaaS system. For example, PaaS interface module  124  may interact with authentication service  224  to authenticate the end user selecting an application repo at the PaaS system. Once authenticated, the PaaS interface module may interact with broker layer  220 , on the end user&#39;s behalf, to cause a new application to be created at the node layer  230  under a PaaS account of the end user using the forked repo. The forked repo  145  may be stored in a remote repo  233   a  at the node layer  230 . 
     The remote SCM repositories  233   a ,  233   b ,  233   c  store applications for editing and/or for execution on the node  232   a ,  232   b ,  232   c . In one embodiment, there is a remote SCM repository  233   a  on each node  232   a ,  232   b  that executes the forked application. For example, the forked repo may be stored to one or more nodes  232   a ,  232   b  as forked app remote repo  233   a  and then deployed. In one embodiment, each fork of the repository would embody a different and unique configuration of the application. When forking the application, the contents of the repository are cloned onto the destination (e.g., the remote repo or local VM node). That cloned repository is the executable application, all of the application&#39;s components, and the specific/unique configuration for the application. The differences between two “forks” of the repository may be isolated to the configuration settings of each forked repository. 
     Nodes  232   a ,  232   b  may then execute forked app gears A and B  235   a ,  235   b  to implement functionality of the forked application for the end user. 
     In some embodiments, a local copy of the forked repo, which refers to the remote repo  233   a , may also be stored at the client layer as discussed above. This allows the end user to make code changes to the forked application, and then store those changes in the local SCM repository  215   a  associated with the forked application. The updated software application can then be provided (e.g., “pushed”) from the local SCM repository  215   a  to the remote SCM repository  233   a.    
     Due to the nature of forking an application, changes made to the source code of the application may be integrated back to the master copy from which the forked application originated. As a result, in some embodiments, the changes made to the forked app local repo  215  and/or the forked app remote repo  233   a  may be contributed back to the master copy of the application provided by the application store server device  105 . Each copy of the forked application repository  215   a ,  233   a  may include identifying information of the location and identification of the master copy of the application repo that acted as the originating source. 
     As a result, the SCM system  212  can implement functionality to cause changes made to the local repo  215   a  or remote repo  233   a  to be pushed back to the app source repo  145  at the application store server device  105 . The application store server device  105  may then display the updated version of the application as a different version of the application. In some embodiments, revision and/or error controls may be implemented to provide control over when and if contributed changes are integrated into the master copy of the application source code. 
       FIG. 3  is a flow diagram illustrating a method  300  for providing an application from a shared application store for deployment on a PaaS system via a local repository of a user&#39;s device according to an embodiment of the disclosure. Method  300  may be performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, microcode, etc.), software (such as instructions run on a processing device), firmware, or a combination thereof. In one embodiment, method  300  is performed by application store server device  105  of  FIG. 1 . 
     Method  300  begins at block  310  where identifying information of a repository stored by a shared application store is received. The repository may include the application, all of the application&#39;s components, and the specific/unique configuration of the particular version of the application in the repository. In one embodiment, the repository is associated with an application that is selected by a user for deployment on a PaaS system. The application may be selected via a GUI provided by the application store server device, where the GUI provides a listing of pre-configured and/or pre-built applications that are ready for deployment in the PaaS system. In addition, the repository of the selected application may be stored in a data store of the application store server device. The data store may be part of a SCM system executed by the application server device. 
     At block  320 , identifying information of a local repository location on a device of the user is received. In one embodiment, the local repository is a location to which the repository of the selected application is to be sent. The local repository of the user&#39;s device may be part of a SCM system that is associated with the PaaS system. 
     Subsequently, at block  330 , a command to fork the repository of the selected application is issued. The command to fork includes a destination of the local repository of the user&#39;s device, whose location was previously provided in block  320 . In one embodiment, the fork command is the action of creating a copy that references an original, so that changes can be tracked and flowed between the original (master) and the forked copy. 
     At block  340 , the repository of the selected application is accessed and a copy of the repository is generated. Furthermore, supporting information to maintain the forking operation is also generated. In one embodiment, this supporting information may include identifying information of a location of the master copy of the repository, versioning information, and so on. At block  350 , the generated copy of the repository and the supporting information are sent to the identified location of the local repository on the user&#39;s device. The application may then be deployed on the PaaS system from the local repository subsequent to the sending. 
     At block  360 , changes made to the source code of the application at the local repository are sent to the application store server device. The fork operation and sending of the supporting information enables changes made to a forked repository to be contributed back to a master repository. In one embodiment, if the repository is part of a Git SCM, then a push command is used by the local repository to contribute any changes to the source code back to the master repository. Lastly, at block  370 , the received changes are provided as a different version of the application that can be selected for deployment on the PaaS system by the user, as well as other users. 
       FIG. 4  is a flow diagram illustrating a method  400  for providing an application from a shared application store for deployment on a PaaS system via a remote repository associated with a PaaS system account associated with a user that selected the application according to an embodiment of the disclosure. Method  400  may be performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, microcode, etc.), software (such as instructions run on a processing device), firmware, or a combination thereof. In one embodiment, method  400  is performed by application store server device  105  of  FIG. 1 . 
     Method  400  begins at block  410  where identifying information of a repository is received. In one embodiment, the repository is associated with an application that is selected by a user for deployment on a PaaS system. The application may be selected via a GUI provided by the application store server device, where the GUI provides a listing of pre-configured and/or pre-built applications that are ready for deployment in the PaaS system. In addition, the repository of the selected application may be stored in a data store of the application store server device. The data store may be part of a SCM system executed by the application server device. 
     At block  420 , identifying information of a PaaS system account of the user that selected the application is received. In one embodiment, the user may provide this information to the application store server device as intermediary. In other embodiments, the user may directly provide this identifying information to the PaaS system. Then, at block  430 , a command to fork the repository of the selected application is issued. The command to fork includes a destination of the PaaS system to send the forked repository. In one embodiment, the fork command is the action of creating a copy that references an original, so that changes can be tracked and flowed between the original (master) and the forked copy. 
     At block  440 , the repository of the selected application is accessed and a copy of the repository is generated. Furthermore, supporting information to maintain the forking operation is also generated. In one embodiment, this supporting information may include identifying information of a location of the master copy of the repository, versioning information, and so on. At block  450 , the generated copy of the repository and the supporting information are sent to the PaaS system. In one embodiment, the identifying information of the PaaS user account is utilized when providing the forked copy and the supporting information. The account information is used by the PaaS system to deploy the forked repository on a remote repository of the PaaS system, where the remote repository is implemented on a node of the PaaS system (e.g., a VM executing on a cloud provider system) subsequent to the sending. 
     At block  460 , changes made to the source code of the application at the remote repository are sent to the application store server device. The fork operation and sending of the supporting information enables changes made to a forked repository to be contributed back to a master repository. In one embodiment, if the repository is part of a Git SCM, then a push command is used by the remote repository to contribute any changes to the source code back to the master repository. Lastly, at block  470 , the received changes are provided as a different version of the application that can be selected for deployment on the PaaS system by the user, as well as other users. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in the example form of a computer system  500  within which a set of instructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed. In alternative embodiments, the machine may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines in a LAN, an intranet, an extranet, or the Internet. The machine may operate in the capacity of a server or a client device in a client-server network environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. The machine may be a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a web appliance, a server, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further, while a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. 
     The computer system  500  includes a processing device  502 , a main memory  504  (e.g., read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, dynamic random access memory (DRAM) (such as synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) or DRAM (RDRAM), etc.), a static memory  506  (e.g., flash memory, static random access memory (SRAM), etc.), and a data storage device  518 , which communicate with each other via a bus  530 . 
     Processing device  502  represents one or more general-purpose processing devices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like. More particularly, the processing device may be complex instruction set computing (CISC) microprocessor, reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessor, very long instruction word (VLIW) microprocessor, or processor implementing other instruction sets, or processors implementing a combination of instruction sets. Processing device  502  may also be one or more special-purpose processing devices such as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a digital signal processor (DSP), network processor, or the like. The processing device  502  is configured to execute the processing logic  526  for performing the operations and steps discussed herein. 
     The computer system  500  may further include a network interface device  508  communicably coupled to a network  520 . The computer system  500  also may include a video display unit  510  (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)), an alphanumeric input device  512  (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device  514  (e.g., a mouse), and a signal generation device  516  (e.g., a speaker). 
     The data storage device  518  may include a machine-accessible storage medium  524  on which is stored software  526  embodying any one or more of the methodologies of functions described herein. The software  526  may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory  504  as instructions  526  and/or within the processing device  502  as processing logic  526  during execution thereof by the computer system  500 ; the main memory  504  and the processing device  502  also constituting machine-accessible storage media. 
     The machine-readable storage medium  524  may also be used to store instructions  526  to implement an application store server device  105  to provide a shared application store for a PaaS system in a computer system, such as the computer system described with respect to  FIG. 1 , and/or a software library containing methods that call the above applications. While the machine-accessible storage medium  528  is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-accessible storage medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term “machine-accessible storage medium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instruction for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the disclosure. The term “machine-accessible storage medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, and optical and magnetic media. 
     In the foregoing description, numerous details are set forth. It will be apparent, however, that the disclosure may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the disclosure. 
     Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. 
     It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the following discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as “sending”, “receiving”, “attaching”, “forwarding”, “caching”, “referencing”, “determining”, “issuing”, or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system&#39;s registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices. 
     The disclosure also relates to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the purposes of embodiments of the disclosure, or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a machine readable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, each coupled to a computer system bus. 
     The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the described method steps. The structure for a variety of these systems will appear as set forth in the description below. In addition, the disclosure is not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the disclosure as described herein. 
     The disclosure may be provided as a computer program product, or software, that may include a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which may be used to program a computer system (or other electronic devices) to perform a process according to the disclosure. A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable (e.g., computer-readable) medium includes a machine (e.g., a computer) readable storage medium (e.g., read only memory (“ROM”), random access memory (“RAM”), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices, etc.), etc. 
     Whereas many alterations and modifications of the disclosure will no doubt become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art after having read the foregoing description, it is to be understood that any particular embodiment shown and described by way of illustration is in no way intended to be considered limiting. Therefore, references to details of various embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the claims, which in themselves recite those features regarded as the disclosure.