Container based application reification

A method of application reification, the method comprising:

• preserving, by an application reification system, a version of application data at a first time, the version of application data including a copy of a state of an application at the first time, the application executing on a host system separate from the application reification system;
• preserving an application configuration of the application at the first time, the application configuration including information associated with the execution of the application at the first time;
• at a second time subsequent to the first time, receiving, from the host system, a request to reify the application at the state corresponding to the first time in a container on the host system;
• and
• in response to the request:
• creating, by the application reification system, a container template, the container template including information associated with instantiating the container executing the application at the state corresponding to the first time, the container template including the application configuration of the application at the first time and a pointer to the version of the application data stored in a secondary storage repository, and
• instantiating, based on the created container template, the container executing the application at the state corresponding to the first time;
• copying the instantiated container on the application reification system;
• and
• providing the container template to the host system for reifying the application at the state corresponding to the first time in the container, the host system providing an amount of computing resources to reify the application at the state corresponding to the first time in the container, the amount of computing resources equal to or scaled from a production environment for the application at the first time.

A host system comprising:

• one or more computer readable storage media;
• a processing system operatively coupled with the one or more computer readable storage media;
• and
• program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when read and executed by the processing system, direct the processing system to:
• executing an application in a production environment at a first time;
• at a second time later than the first time, receive a user instruction to reify the application at a state corresponding to the first time in a container on the host system;
• request, from an application reification system separate from the host system, a container template, the container template including information associated with instantiating the container executing the application at the state corresponding to the first time, the container template including an application configuration of the application and a pointer to a version of application data stored on a secondary repository, the application configuration including information associated with the execution of the application at the first time and the version of application data including a copy of the state of the application at the first time, the container instantiated based on the container template;
• and
• receive the container template from the application reification system;
• and
• instantiate the container executing the application, wherein the application operates on the version of the application data stored on the secondary repository, and wherein the host system provides an amount of computing resources to reify the application at the state corresponding to the first time in the container, the amount of computing resources equal to or scaled from a production environment for the application at the first time.