Demeter Compute Units
Now that we have successfully created a Workspace and it's been running for a while, you will notice the value of DCUs for your project starts to grow. So what are these DCUs?
DCUs
Demeter Compute Units (DCUs) are an abstraction layer implemented in Demeter (opens in a new tab) to measure infrastructure usage. Every enabled extension in your project consumes a certain amount of DCUs per unit of time, depending on the actual impact on resource consumption. You can enable just the extensions you need at the project level to have total control over spending.
Each project has some DCUs available per billing period according to the Plan under which it was created.
Optimize your DCU consumption
Each extension will consume a certain number of DCUs per unit of time. We recommend you only enable the extensions you want to use for your project. See the guide for Managing Extensions to get more information on how to disable/enable extensions individually.
Workspaces is one of the extensions with the biggest impact on your DCUs consumption. As a simple rule to optimize your resources, always remember to:
- Pause your Workspaces when you are done using them. Running a Workspace will consume ~2000 DCUs per minute for a
smallsize, duplicating its value for amediumsize Workspace. You can easily pause your workspaces when you are done for the day and start them back when you resume your work. - Even though you can create as many Workspaces as you need, there is information which will be persisted for each one of those Workspaces. This means that even if your Workspace is paused it will consume a minimal number of DCU per unit of time. We recommend you delete your temporary or abandoned workspaces; you can always create new workspaces as you need them.
- Connect only the necessary extensions. All connected extensions will consume DCUs even if they are not being used. Make sure you disconnect unused extensions on your projects.
- Don't oversize your workspaces. Running workspaces consume DCUs according to their size. Make sure you select the right size for your project needs. Keep in mind that you can resize your workspace after it is created by editing the settings on your workspace detail page.
Always keep an eye on your DCU consumption
It's easy to view the project's DCUs consumption per resource during the last 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days in your Project Development Console.
What's more, when you select the View Detail button, you can see the amount of DCUs consumed from running extensions in the last 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days. We make all of this information always available so you can have complete control over deciding which extensions you want to run depending on your needs.
