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Meet Springs.io. This container-based cloud infrastructure provider claims to offer the first pure-play container cloud service in the UK.

The company builds upon the auto-scaling Linux container technology from hosting provider ElasticHosts, whose CEO, Richard Davies, is the founder of Springs.io. One of the key facets of cloud computing is the ability to ‘pay as you go’ – but Davies argues this can be taken one step further. With billing based on actual usage rather than provisioned capacity, users could theoretically pay for just 1GB when a 4GB server is lightly used.

“We have been listening to the market and what we are hearing is that people are craving simplicity,” he said. “They just want to be able to sign up to a service without having to choose instance sizes or worry about over-paying, just as you would with your gas or electricity.”

The move plays into a greater confidence and maturation from companies grappling with cloud services, Davies explains, noting: “While some customers need greater support and configuration, many don’t, and we wanted to provide a service for users that are looking for a more simplistic offering.” However, for something such as configuring a cloud environment to automatically scale, many SMEs – who the Springs.io product targets – might not have that in-house.

“Springs.io is very clear and easy to navigate, and best of all it automatically scales and bills users based on their actual usage – so it really does the thinking for you,” added Davies.

Springs.io and ElasticHosts both utilise Linux, but the latter acts more like you would expect from traditional infrastructure as a service. In May, Davies – with his ElasticHosts hat on – wrote for this publication on the next generation of Linux containers which foreshadowed this move. Vertical scaling of containerised servers, he wrote, can handle varying load with no need to pre-estimate requirements and, using a water analogy, you can simply turn the tap on and off.

“This is a giant leap forward in commoditising cloud computing and takes it closer to true utilities such as gas, electricity and water,” he wrote. Springs.io appears to be the first step on that giant leap.