This document describes how to view usage and forecast data of the following Compute Engine resources in your Google Cloud project, folder, or organization:
Virtual machine (VM) instances, including vCPUs, RAM, and Local SSD disks attached to the VMs.
Persistent Disk volumes, whether they're attached to VMs or not.
GPUs, whether they're attached to VMs or not.
Viewing the usage data of your VMs, Persistent Disk volumes, and GPUs helps you analyze and optimize their usage, as well as plan for future capacity and quota needs.
Before you begin
If you can't access Capacity Planner in the Google Cloud console, then your organization might not be eligible to access and use Capacity Planner. To request access, contact your Technical Account Manager (TAM) or the Sales team.
If you haven't already, then see how Capacity Planner works.
Required roles
To get the permissions that you need to view the usage and forecast data of your Compute Engine resources, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on your project, folder, or organization:
-
To access and view Capacity Planner:
Capacity Planner Viewer (
roles/capacityplanner.viewer)
For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.
These predefined roles contain the permissions required to view the usage and forecast data of your Compute Engine resources. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:
Required permissions
The following permissions are required to view the usage and forecast data of your Compute Engine resources:
-
To view the forecasted usage of your Compute Engine resources:
capacityplanner.forecasts.liston the project, folder, or organization -
To view the historical usage of your Compute Engine resources:
capacityplanner.usageHistories.liston the project, folder, or organization -
To summarize the historical usage of your Compute Engine resources:
capacityplanner.usageHistories.summarizeon the project, folder, or organization
You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.
Limitations
When viewing usage and forecast data in Capacity Planner, the following limitations apply:
Capacity Planner updates historical usage data for your VMs, Persistent Disk volumes, and GPUs every 24 hours.
In the Usage and forecast by machine family or Usage and forecast by GPU type graph, the following limitations apply:
You can only view the quotas for your VMs or GPUs when doing all of the following:
You filter the graph by a single machine family or GPU type.
You filter the graph by region.
You view usage and forecast data of a project's resources.
You can only view shared on-demand reservations and shared future reservation requests using the owner project, the folder containing the owner project, or your organization.
You can view historically reserved capacity and consumed reserved capacity for your VMs or GPU VMs until August 1, 2024.
In the Usage and forecast by disk type graph, you can't view on-demand reservations and future reservations requests.
You can view the Usage and forecast by machine type table only when viewing the usage and forecast data of VMs or GPUs.
View the forecast and usage of your resources
You can view the usage and forecast data of the VMs, Persistent Disk volumes, and GPUs in your project, folder, or organization by doing the following:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Capacity Planner page.
When the Capacity Planner page opens, you can then filter the UI elements to see different data visualizations for the usage and forecast data of the resources in your project, folder, or organization.
Optional: To change project, folder, or organization, in the project picker at the top of the page, select a project, folder, or organization.
Select the type of Compute Engine resource you want to view usage data for:
To view your VMs' usage data, click the Virtual machine tab, if it isn't already selected.
To view your Persistent Disk volumes' usage data, click the Disk tab.
To view your GPUs' usage data, click the GPU tab.
The following sections outline the different UI elements on the Capacity Planner page in the Google Cloud console.
Machine family distribution for a selected location
The Machine family distribution for a selected location chart shows the distribution of a single or all machine families across the locations where you created VMs. By default, the chart shows the most used machine family in the last 30 days.
Region distribution for a selected machine family
The Region distribution for a selected machine family chart shows the distribution of a single or all machine families across all regions and zones where your VMs are located. By default, the chart shows the region with the highest usage in the last 30 days.
Usage and forecast by Compute Engine resource type
Capacity Planner provides graphs showing usage trends (50th, 75th, or 99th percentile) and forecasts (lower bound, upper bound, and median) for your VMs, Persistent Disk volumes, or GPUs. The graph that you see depends on the resource that you're viewing:
Usage and forecast by machine family: This graph shows you the usage, forecast, reservations (if any), and quota of the Local SSD disks, RAM, or vCPUs of your VMs, filtered by machine family and location.
Usage and forecast by disk type: This graph shows you the usage, forecast, and quota for your Persistent Disk volumes, filtered by disk type and location.
Usage and forecast by GPU type: This graph shows you the usage, forecast, reservations (if any), and quota for your GPUs, filtered by GPU type and location.
By default, the Usage and forecast by machine family graph showing the most used machine family and region in the last 30 days appears. This graph also shows you the following:
The 99th percentile usage for your VMs.
A prediction interval of 50.
Any on-demand reservations or future reservation requests as follows:
In a project or folder, you can see single-project reservations.
In an organization, you can see single-project and shared reservations.
To show or hide options in the graph, click More options, and then click the respective toggles to the on or off position. Capacity Planner updates aggregated future reservations data every 60 minutes.
Additionally, if you're viewing usage and forecast data of a Compute Engine resource in your project, and your project has sufficient usage data, the Enable quota adjuster button appears. By clicking it, you can enable the quota adjuster in your project.
Usage and forecast by machine type
The Usage and forecast by machine type table displays historical and predicted usage of the following Compute Engine resources:
If you're viewing the usage data of your VMs, then the table displays the predicted usage of the VMs within a selected machine family and region.
If you're viewing the usage data of your GPUs, then the table displays the predicted usage of the VMs that specify a selected GPU type and region.
Capacity Planner presents data at 50th, 75th, or 99th percentile, broken down by individual machine type and zone. The table includes the following columns:
Machine type: The details of each machine type in the selected machine family, including their vCPU, RAM, attached Local SSD disks (if any), and GPU type (if any).
Zone: The zone where each machine type is located.
Average of NTH percentile usage - VM count: The number of VMs using each machine type, averaged at the selected percentile.
Average of NTH percentile usage - Cores count: The number of vCPUs used per machine type, averaged at the selected percentile.
Percentage breakdown by machine type: The use of each machine type relative to other machine types in the table.
Top projects based on historical usage: The top 20 projects with the highest historical usage of the selected machine type. This column appears only when you're viewing the usage of VMs or GPUs for a folder or organization.
Usage contribution by top projects: The percentage of usage of the top 20 projects for the selected machine type. This column appears only when you're viewing the usage of VMs or GPUs for a folder or organization.
Forecast VM count - PREDICTION_INTERVAL: The forecasted number of VMs over the selected prediction interval.
Forecast Cores count - PREDICTION_INTERVAL: The forecasted number of vCPUs per machine type over the selected prediction interval.
Reservations: The current on-demand reservations, as well as past and current future reservation requests. The data is broken down by machine type and zone, and averaged at the selected percentile. If there are on-demand reservations or future reservation requests for a specific machine type and zone, then you can see the Details button. By clicking it, a pane appears showing the following:
In the Usage by CPU platform section, the percentage breakdown of minimum CPU platforms for that machine type and zone.
In the VM forecast for date range section, the forecasted number of VMs over your selected date range for the selected percentile usage.
In the Reservations by CPU platform section, the existing on-demand reservations and future reservation requests grouped by CPU platform.
Except for the percentage breakdown by machine type, Capacity Planner rounds all values to the nearest whole number.
By default, the table shows the 99th percentile usage and a prediction interval of 50% for the most used machine type in the most active location over the past 30 days. To view the future reservation requests during your chosen forecast dates, click Future reservations in forecast range.
What's next
Learn how to export usage and forecast data.
Learn how to enable the quota adjuster.
Learn how to reserve capacity from actual or forecasted usage.