From time to time, we get the question of explaining DownToZero and what makes it stand out from other cloud services to non-technical people. We’ve tried various explanations, but we found an analogy that resonates with most people. We wanted to share it here to make our principle accessible to more people.
Después de una larga jornada laboral, conduces de regreso a casa. Al llegar a tu casa, aparcas en la entrada, apagas el coche y entras en la casa. Incluso si planeas ir de compras más tarde ese día, todavía apagas el coche porque dejarlo en marcha parece un desperdicio.
Más tarde ese día, vuelves a tu coche para ir de compras. Enciendes el coche y conduces hasta la tienda. Al volver a casa, apagas el coche por la noche. Incluso si hace frío por la noche y es incómodo que la calefacción tarde en arrancar y que los asientos se calienten por la mañana, todavía apagamos el coche. Mantener el coche en marcha parece ridículo solo por unos minutos de calentamiento.
For cars, we have developed an understanding that it is not very practical or cost-effective to keep them running all the time. We are fine with a warm-up phase, and manufacturers have invested heavily in making this phase more convenient.
Now, for IT services and machines, we expect all services to be running at all times. The reason is convenience, so we always opt for “always-on” because the cost is acceptable. DownToZero breaks with that habit by shutting down everything that is not in use. This approach is called “scale-to-zero.” We incorporate scale-to-zero at every possible point because achieving sustainability requires not just green energy or more efficient CPUs but also shutting down unused software. We believe that following this path will have the most significant impact. We did it for cars, and it is natural to use cars this way. Now it is time to apply this paradigm to software too.