---
title: "AI Deploy - App concept"
description: "An app in AI Deploy is the workload unit submitted to the cluster. An app runs as a Docker container within the OVHcloud infrastructure."
url: https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-deploy-apps
lang: en
---
> For AI agents: the complete documentation index is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms.txt, the full documentation bundle is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms-full.txt.

# AI Deploy - App concept

## Definition

An **app** in **AI Deploy** is the workload unit submitted to the cluster. An **app** runs as a Docker container within the OVHcloud infrastructure.

Each AI Deploy app is linked to a **Public Cloud** project and specifies the number of resources needed to run the inference task along with a Docker image either publicly available in the **AI Deploy** shared registry scoped to your project or a private registry of your choosing. For the latter, see the [OVHcloud documentation on how to add, use, and manage registries](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/manage-registries.md).

 

## Considerations

**Warning:**

**NOTE:** An app will run indefinitely until manual interruption.

- [Data](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/data-concepts-best-practices.md) can be attached to an app to serve as input (e.g., model weights).
- If you do not customize your resource request, the default request is 1 GPU (NVIDIA L4). Memory is not customizable.
- [Scaling](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-deploy-apps-deployments.md) for applications depends on the chosen configuration. It can be **static** or **automatic** and is based on a trigger threshold according to the metric chosen by the user.
- [Billing](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-deploy-billing.md) for **apps** is minute-based and applies during the `SCALING` and `RUNNING` states of the application. Each commenced minute is billed completely.
- You can read further on app limitations [here](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-deploy-capabilities.md).

 

## Under the hood

**Apps** in **AI Deploy** are Docker containers within the OVHcloud infrastructure.

 

## App lifecycle

During its lifetime, the app will transit between the following states:

**Note:**

Only the `RUNNING` and `SCALING` time of the app **is billed**. For more information about apps billing, refer to this [documentation](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-deploy-billing.md).

- `QUEUED`: The app deployment request is about to be processed.
- `INITIALIZING`: The app is being started, and the remote data (if any) is synchronized.
- `RUNNING`: The app is running, you can connect to it, compute resources (GPUs/CPUs) are allocated to your specific app, and an HTTP endpoint is available.
- `SCALING`: The app deployment is scaling up or down, depending on the scaling configuration. While scaling, the app is still available if it was running before.
- `STOPPING`: The app is stopping, your compute resources are freed, and ephemeral data is deleted.
- `STOPPED`: The app ended normally, and you can restart it whenever you want or delete it.
- `FAILED`: The app ended in error, e.g., the Docker image is invalid (unreachable, built with Linux/ARM, etc.).
- `ERROR`: The app ended due to a backend error (an issue on the OVHcloud side).
- `DELETING`: The app is being removed.
- `DELETED`: The app is fully deleted.

 

## Go further

- You can check the [OVHcloud documentation on how to create a data container](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/storage-and-backup/object-storage/pcs-create-container.md).
- You can check the [OVHcloud documentation on how to submit an app](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-deploy-getting-started.md).

Browse all the [AI & Machine Learning guides](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/landing-page-ai-machine-learning.md).

Browse the rest of the [OVHcloud US documentation](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/index.md) for guides on our other products and services.

Learn more about [AI & Machine Learning](https://us.ovhcloud.com/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/) on the OVHcloud US website.

If you need training or technical assistance to implement our solutions, contact your sales representative or click on [this link](https://us.ovhcloud.com/professional-services/) to get a quote and ask our Professional Services experts for a custom analysis of your project.