Reduce overprovisioned Cloud SQL instances

MySQL   |  PostgreSQL   |  SQL Server

The Cloud SQL overprovisioned instance recommender helps you detect instances that are unnecessarily large for a given workload. It then provides recommendations on how to resize such instances and reduce cost. This page describes how this recommender works and how to use it.

How it works

The Cloud SQL overprovisioned recommender analyzes the usage metrics of primary instances that are older than 30 days. For each instance, the recommender considers the CPU and memory utilization based on the values of certain metrics within the last 30 days. The recommender does not analyze read replicas.

If the peak utilization of either or both the CPU and the memory within the observation period is low, the instance is estimated to be overprovisioned. Recommendations are generated every 24 hours for rightsizing such instances when the estimated monthly cost savings are greater than or equal to $10.

The recommender uses conservative thresholds to ensure that it flags only instances that are significantly overprovisioned, which is usually a good indicator of waste. The recommender suggests a machine type that has at least 8 vCPUs and 32 GB.

Warning: It's highly recommended that you evaluate the insights and in-context charts. Consult with the appropriate team to determine whether the flagged instance is inadvertently overprovisioned and a smaller instance might meet the needs of your application.

Pricing

The Cloud SQL overprovisioned instance recommender is in the Standard Recommender pricing tier.

Before you begin

Before you can view recommendations and insights, do the following:

• To get the permissions to view and work with insights and recommendations, ensure that you have the required roles.

  Tasks	Roles
  View recommendations	One of these roles: recommender.cloudsqlViewer or cloudsql.viewer.
  Apply recommendations	One of these roles: recommender.cloudsqlAdmin, cloudsql.editor, or cloudsql.admin.

  For more information about roles, see understanding roles and granting IAM permissions.

• Enable the Recommender API.

  Enable the API

List overprovisioned Cloud SQL instance recommendations

You can list overprovisioned instance recommendations by using the Google Cloud console, gcloud, or the Recommender API.

Console

To list recommendations about overprovisioned instances by using the Google Cloud console, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page.

   Go to Cloud SQL Instances

2. Click View all on the overprovisioned instance recommendations banner.

Alternatively, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Recommendation Hub.

   Go to the Recommendation Hub

   For more information, see Getting started with Recommendation Hub.

2. In the Reduce Cloud SQL instance cost card, click View all.

3. Click the Reduce instance tab.

gcloud

To list recommendations about overprovisioned instances by using gcloud, run the gcloud recommender recommendations list command as follows:

gcloud recommender recommendations list \
--project=PROJECT_ID \
--location=LOCATION \
--recommender=google.cloudsql.instance.RECOMMENDER

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: Your project ID.
• LOCATION: A region, such as us-central1.
• RECOMMENDER: The ID of the recommender as OverprovisionedRecommender.

API

To list recommendations about overprovisioned instances by using the Recommendations API, call the recommendations.list method as follows:

GET https://recommender.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT-ID/locations/LOCATION/recommenders/google.cloudsql.instance.RECOMMENDER/recommendations

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: Your project ID.
• LOCATION: A region, such as us-central1.
• RECOMMENDER: The ID of the recommender as OverprovisionedRecommender.

If the recommender detects overprovisioned instances, it lists them in a table. Each row shows the instance name, a brief recommendation, the current machine type, the recommended machine type, the location, and the last refresh date.

View insights and detailed recommendations

You can view insights and detailed recommendations about overprovisioned instances by using the Google Cloud console, gcloud, or the Recommender API.

Console

To view insights and detailed recommendations about an overprovisioned instance by using the Google Cloud console, click the recommendation button in the list of instances.

gcloud

To view insights and detailed recommendations about overprovisioned instances by using gcloud, run the gcloud recommender insights list command as follows:

gcloud recommender insights list \
--project=PROJECT_ID \
--location=LOCATION \
--insight-type=google.cloudsql.instance.INSIGHT_TYPE

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: Your project ID.
• LOCATION: A region, such as us-central1.
• INSIGHT_TYPE: The ID of the insight type as CpuUsageInsight or MemoryUsageInsight, which provide insights about CPU usage and memory, respectively.

API

To view insights and detailed recommendations about overprovisioned instances by using the Recommendations API, call the insights.list method as follows:

GET https://recommender.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT-ID/locations/LOCATION/insightTypes/google.cloudsql.instance.INSIGHT_TYPE/insights

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID: Your project ID.
• LOCATION: A region, such as us-central1.
• INSIGHT_TYPE: The ID of the insight type as CpuUsageInsight. or MemoryUsageInsight, which provide insights about CPU usage and memory, respectively.

A panel appears showing insights about the current memory and CPU utilization of the instance. The following categories of information are provided along with some supporting charts.

Fields	Descriptions and related metrics
Max CPU utilization	The maximum CPU utilization as a percentage. Pertains to database/cpu/utilization.
Max memory utilization	The maximum memory utilization as a percentage. Pertains to database/memory/utilization.

The following table lists the insights and recommendations that the Cloud SQL overprovisioned instance recommender might generate to help you reduce costs. The subtypes are visible in the gcloud and API results.

Insights	Recommendations
Based on the current CPU utilization trends, the instance is flagged as overprovisioned. Subtype: LOW_CPU_UTILIZATION	Reduce the number of vCPUs or switch to a machine with fewer vCPUs. Subtype: CHANGE_INSTANCE_SIZE
Based on the current memory utilization trends, the instance is flagged as overprovisioned. Subtype: LOW_MEMORY_UTILIZATION.	Reduce the memory requirement or switch to a machine with less memory. Subtype: CHANGE_INSTANCE_SIZE

Apply recommendations

Evaluate the recommendations carefully and do any of the following:

• To examine the recommendation, click View instance.

  A banner appears at the top of the page providing a recommendation.

  Edit the instance, if required, to reduce the vCPUs or memory. Alternatively, switch to a machine type with fewer vCPUs and less memory. You don't need to rightsize the instance exactly as recommended. Use your judgement about instance size based on how you intend to provision the instance. Keep in mind that the bigger the size, the greater the operational latency.

• To dismiss the recommendation so that it's de-emphasized and appears dimmed, click Dismiss.

• To close the panel without applying or dismissing the recommendation, click Cancel.

You can also export these recommendations to BigQuery and then examine them using Looker Studio or Looker.

What's next

• Monitor disk availability
• Reduce idle Cloud SQL instances
• Blog: Maximize your Cloud ROI
• Blog: Do more with less
• Google Cloud recommenders