The Docker.io, the open source virtualization container technology project, celebrated its one-year anniversary on March 20 and the company has been quick enough to introduce new services including a commercial service to start making money.

Docker is one of the fastest growing open source projects currently. Docker containers provide some of the attributes of virtualization, but without the need for a hypervisor. The application runs in a defined and isolated space on the server and can run alongside several other containerized applications.

The first commercial service is called private Docker repositories. Docker will continue to offer users an unlimited number of public repos hosted on Docker’s website, but private repos pricing plans start at $7/month for at most five repositories up to $50/month for a maximum of fifty repositories. The commercial pricing is aimed at Docker developers who want to build container-based applications to collaborate more effectively prior to releasing their apps into the wild.

“All services on Docker.io to this point have been freely available, and we feel this is important in fostering an active, growing community around Docker. For this reason, most of Docker.io’s services will continue to be free but, as Ben has already publicly shared, to support continued investment in Docker we will over time offer optional pay-for services. Private repos is the first example of this,” as stated at Docker’s blog.

Alongside private report, Docker has added several new features to its repository system to automate repo-based workflows. One of such feature is the new webhooks service. Webhooks is the service that let developers to automatically trigger RESTful notifications to other applications using successful repo push. Another feature is Triggers, which allow Trusted Builds to be booted by making a simple POST request. Trusted Builds service allow connection to a GitHub repository account and add a post commit hook to a GitHub repository. Trusted Builds are also enhanced with links, which give developers the capability to synchronize repositories

Finally, the company hinted at several other capabilities that could become monetized, such as monitoring services or orchestration and migration and introduction of public cloud services.

Docker has strong community support due to its open source culture. Red Hat has already pledged to include Docker in the upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 release. Going a step further, Red Hat has decided to expand its certification program to include Docker container running on RHEL.