Encapsulated application templates for containerized application software development

1. A computer-implemented method for managing a plurality of services in a containerized application program, comprising:

creating an application template of said containerized application program, wherein a given service of the plurality of services has a respective version representing a state of development of the given service, wherein said application template comprises: (i) an identifier of a current version of each of said plurality of services, wherein each of said plurality of services are identified by a service name and wherein said current version for at least one of said plurality of services identifies one of a plurality of versions of said at least one service, (ii) dependencies of the given service with other services of the application, (iii) runtime parameters and (iv) configurations of the given service, wherein the identifiers, dependencies, runtime parameters and configurations are used to instantiate the given service to the respective version;

generating a transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template; and

providing said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template to another device as a common entry point to instantiate the containerized application program.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the entities comprise one or more of a developer, a quality assurance personnel, and a client user of the containerized application program.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template comprises one or more of a uniform resource locator, a two-dimensional scan code and an HTTP cookie.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein each service comprises a software routine executed as part of the containerized application program and created independently of the other services.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the application template is created during runtime of the containerized application program as part of a runtime infrastructure of a system containing the containerized application program.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the given service is updated as part of a bug-fix process and the application template is automatically updated with new version, configuration, and dependency information during runtime of the bug-fix process.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating comprises one or more of compressing and encoding the application template to generate said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token.

8. A computer program product for managing a plurality of services in a containerized application program, comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having encoded therein executable code of one or more software programs, wherein the one or more software programs when executed by at least one processing device perform the following steps:

creating an application template of said containerized application program, wherein a given service of the plurality of services has a respective version representing a state of development of the given service, wherein said application template comprises: (i) an identifier of a current version of each of said plurality of services, wherein each of said plurality of services are identified by a service name and wherein said current version for at least one of said plurality of services identifies one of a plurality of versions of said at least one service, (ii) dependencies of the given service with other services of the application, (iii) runtime parameters and (iv) configurations of the given service, wherein the identifiers, dependencies, runtime parameters and configurations are used to instantiate the given service to the respective version;

generating a transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template; and

providing said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template to another device as a common entry point to instantiate the containerized application program.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the entities comprise one or more of a developer, a quality assurance personnel, and a client user of the containerized application program.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template comprises one or more of a uniform resource locator, a two-dimensional scan code and an HTTP cookie.

11. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein each service comprises a software routine executed as part of the containerized application program and created independently of the other services.

12. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the given service is updated as part of a bug-fix process and the application template is automatically updated with new version, configuration, and dependency information during runtime of the bug-fix process.

13. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the generating comprises one or more of compressing and encoding the application template to generate said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token.

14. A system for managing a plurality of services in a containerized application program, comprising:

a memory; and

at least one hardware device, coupled to the memory, operative to implement the following steps:

creating an application template of said containerized application program, said application template comprising an identifier of a current version of each of said plurality of services, wherein a given service of the plurality of services has a respective version representing a state of development of the given service, wherein said application template comprises: (i) an identifier of a current version of each of said plurality of services, wherein each of said plurality of services are identified by a service name and wherein said current version for at least one of said plurality of services identifies one of a plurality of versions of said at least one service, (ii) dependencies of the given service with other services of the application, (iii) runtime parameters and (iv) configurations of the given service, wherein the identifiers, dependencies, runtime parameters and configurations are used to instantiate the given service to the respective version;

generating a transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template; and

providing said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template to another device as a common entry point to instantiate the containerized application program.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the entities comprise one or more of a developer, a quality assurance personnel, and a client user of the containerized application program.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token comprising the application template comprises one or more of a uniform resource locator, a two-dimensional scan code and an HTTP cookie.

17. The system of claim 14 wherein each service comprises a software routine executed as part of the containerized application program and created independently of the other services.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the application template is created during runtime of the containerized application program as part of a runtime infrastructure of a system containing the containerized application program.

19. The system of claim 14 wherein the given service is updated as part of a bug-fix process and the application template is automatically updated with new version, configuration, and dependency information during runtime of the bug-fix process.

20. The system of claim 14 wherein the generating comprises one or more of compressing and encoding the application template to generate said transferable platform independent self-contained machine-readable token.