Missing Scheduled Shutdown for Non-Production Compute Engine Instances

Yulia Perlis

Service Category

Compute

Cloud Provider

GCP

Service Name

GCP Compute Engine

Inefficiency Type

Inefficient Configuration

Explanation

Development and test environments on Compute Engine are commonly provisioned and left running around the clock, even if only used during business hours. This results in wasteful spend on compute time that could be eliminated by scheduling shutdowns during idle periods. GCP enables scheduling via native tools such as Cloud Scheduler, Cloud Functions, or Terraform automation. Stopping VMs during off-hours preserves boot disks and instance metadata while halting compute billing.

Relevant Billing Model

Compute Engine instances are billed per second (minimum of one minute) based on:

Instance type and configuration
Runtime duration
Additional resources (e.g., persistent disks, external IPs) are billed separately

Detection

Identify VMs in dev/test environments using labels, folders, or project naming conventions
Analyze instance uptime using Cloud Monitoring or billing export data
Detect instances with consistent 9-to-5 usage but continuous runtime
Check whether startup/shutdown schedules are already in place

Remediation

Use Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Functions to automate VM stop/start workflows
Preserve instance configuration and state using persistent disks or custom images
Align schedules to working hours and review regularly with workload owners
Consider integrating automation with CI/CD tools or environment provisioning scripts

Relevant Documentation