This page describes how you can use idle VM recommendations to identify and stop idle VM instances to reduce waste of resources and reduce your compute bill on your projects.
- For more information on how Compute Engine generates idle VM recommendations, see How detection of idle VM instances works.
- For more information on how to configure idle VM Recommender to receive more or fewer recommendations, see Configure idle VM recommendations.
Before you begin
- Review the limitations to check if your VM supports idle VM recommendations.
-
If you haven't already, then set up authentication.
Authentication is
the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs.
To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to
Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:
Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:
Console
When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.
gcloud
-
Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
gcloud init
- Set a default region and zone.
REST
To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.
Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
gcloud init
For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.
-
Pricing
Idle VM recommendations are available free of charge. Using recommendations to reduce your resource usage can result in cost savings.
Viewing idle VM instance recommendations
To view recommendations about idle VMs, use the gcloud CLI or REST.
gcloud
Use the
gcloud recommender recommendations list
command
with --recommender=google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender
:
gcloud recommender recommendations list \ --project=PROJECT_ID \ --location=ZONE \ --recommender=google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender \ --format=yaml
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID
: the ID of your projectZONE
: the zone that contains instances to list recommendations for
For example:
gcloud recommender recommendations list \ --project=my-project \ --location=us-central1-c \ --recommender=google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender \ --format=yaml
If there are no idle VMs in the location, the response is empty. Otherwise, the response includes the following fields for each recommendation:
operationGroups
: groups of operations that you can perform in serial order to apply the recommendationdescription
: a human-readable explanation of the recommendation
---
content:
...
operationGroups:
- operations:
- action: test
path: /status
resource: //compute.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-c/instances/vm-name
resourceType: compute.googleapis.com/Instance
value: RUNNING
- action: replace
path: /status
resource: //compute.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-c/instances/vm-name
resourceType: compute.googleapis.com/Instance
value: TERMINATED
description: Save cost by stopping Idle VM 'vm-name'.
etag: '"83da314c23f634e1"'
lastRefreshTime: '2020-02-24T07:56:40Z'
name: projects/141732092341/locations/us-central1-c/recommenders/google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender/recommendations/0e061a3a-f921-4216-b1b4-62e16942cd1a
primaryImpact:
category: COST
costProjection:
cost:
currencyCode: USD
nanos: -91533961
units: '-262'
duration: 2592000s
recommenderSubtype: STOP_VM
stateInfo:
state: ACTIVE
Learn more about working with recommendations using gcloud in gcloud examples.
REST
Call the
recommendations.list
method
and use the following recommendation type:
- google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender
The API call looks like:
GET https://recommender.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/ZONE/recommenders/google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender/recommendations
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID
: the ID of your project.ZONE
: the zone that contains instances to list recommendations for.
The following example shows out to send a request with curl
, and
the associated sample response.
PROJECT_ID=my-project ZONE=us-central1-c RECOMMENDER_ID=google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \ -H "x-goog-user-project: $PROJECT_ID" \ https://recommender.googleapis.com/v1/projects/$PROJECT_ID/locations/$ZONE/recommenders/$RECOMMENDER_ID/recommendations
Example JSON response for an idle VM recommendation:
{
"description" : "Save cost by stopping Idle VM `vm-name`",
"name": "projects/1574864402/locations/us-central1-c/recommenders/"
"google.compute.instance.IdleResourceRecommender/"
"recommendations/0fd31b24-cc05-4132-8431-ed54a22dd4f1",
"lastRefreshTime": {
"seconds": 1543912652
},
"primaryImpact": {
"category": COST,
"costProjection": {
"cost": {"currencyCode": "USD", "units": -50},
"duration": { "seconds": 2592000 }
}
},
"stateInfo": ACTIVE,
"content":
"groups" : [
{
"operations" : [
{
"action": "test",
"resourceType": "compute.googleapis.com/Instance",
"resource": "//compute.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/"
"zones/us-central1-c/instances/vm-name",
"path": "/status",
"value": "RUNNING"
},
{
"action": "replace",
"resourceType": "compute.googleapis.com/Instance",
"resource": "//compute.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/"
"zones/us-central1-c/instances/vm-name",
"path": "/status",
"value": "TERMINATED"
}
]
}
]
},
"etag" : "cb0e6ac2cfc0b591"
}
You can find more details about each field in the Recommender API documentation.
Interpreting the recommendation response
Each recommendation that you receive through the gcloud CLI or REST contains an operations group, with operations that you can perform in serial to apply the recommendation. Idle VM recommendation operation groups include two operations:
A test operation to verify the current
status
of the VM. For example:{ "action": "test", "resourceType": "compute.googleapis.com/Instance", "resource" : "//compute.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-c/instances/vm-name", "path": "/status", "value": "RUNNING" }
A replace operation to change the
status
of the VM. For example:{ "action": "replace", "resourceType": "compute.googleapis.com/Instance", "resource" : "//compute.googleapis.com/projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-c/instances/vm-name", "path": "/status", "value": "TERMINATED" }
The first operation is a test
, which means that you should test that the
resource
is still RUNNING
. You can do this by
checking the VM state.
The second operation, replace
, means that you should replace the resource's
status
with a new value, TERMINATED
. You can do that by stopping the VM,
which is described below.
Applying idle VM recommendations
After you receive an idle VM recommendation and you decide that you no longer need the instance, use the Google Cloud console, the gcloud CLI, or REST to stop and optionally delete the instance.
If you stop but do not delete an instance and its disks, you still pay for its disks.
Console
- In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.
- Select the instance that you want to stop.
- Click Stop.
gcloud
Use the instances stop
command
and specify the VM_NAME
that you want to stop.
gcloud compute instances stop VM_NAME --zone=ZONE
Replace the following:
VM_NAME
: the name of the VM instance you want to stopZONE
: the zone that contains the instance you want to stop
REST
Construct a POST
request to stop an instance.
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/VM_NAME/stop
Replace the following:
PROJECT_ID
: the ID of your projectZONE
: the zone that contains the instance you want to stopVM_NAME
: the name of the VM instance you want to stop
If you're sure that the VM instance and its disks can be removed you can delete the instance.
What's next
- Learn more about how stopping, resetting, and deleting a VM instance affects the instance and its resources.
- Learn how to configure idle VM recommendations.