Inactive Memorystore Instance

CER:

GCP-Databases-7888

Service Category

Databases

Cloud Provider

GCP

Service Name

Inefficiency Type

Inactive Resource

Explanation

Memorystore instances that are provisioned but unused — whether due to deprecated services, orphaned environments, or development/testing phases ending — continue to incur memory and infrastructure charges. Because usage-based metrics like client connections or cache hit ratios are not tied to billing, an idle instance costs the same as a heavily used one. This makes it critical to identify and decommission inactive caches.

Relevant Billing Model

Billed based on: * Provisioned memory capacity per hour * Network egress (if applicable) * Optional HA configurations incur additional cost Charges accrue even if the instance is not actively serving traffic or receiving connections.

Detection

Identify instances with zero or near-zero connected clients over time
Evaluate cache hit ratio and operation throughput (gets/sets) for inactivity
Check if the instance is tied to an application still in use
Review environments (e.g., test, staging) for abandoned or duplicated caches
Assess whether data stored in the cache is static or outdated

Remediation

Decommission inactive or obsolete Memorystore instances
Consolidate fragmented caching layers across services or environments
Use automated tagging and monitoring to flag long-idle instances
For intermittent workloads, consider re-creating the cache on demand via IaC or CI/CD pipelines

Relevant Documentation

* Memorystore Pricing * Monitoring Redis Instances * Best Practices for Memorystore

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