The committed use discount (CUD) recommender helps you optimize the resource costs of the projects in your Cloud Billing account. CUD recommendations are generated automatically using a formula that analyzes historical and recent usage metrics gathered by Cloud Billing, and includes usage covered by existing commitments. You can apply these recommendations to purchase additional commitments and further optimize your Google Cloud costs.
Recommendations are available for resource-based commitments for Compute Engine, and spend-based commitments for eligible products, including Compute Engine flexible commitments.
Refer to the guides on this page to learn about the following tasks:
- Set permissions to access recommendations
- View recommendations
- Configure recommendation settings
- Understand recommendation summary cards
- Apply recommendations to purchase additional commitments
- Dismiss recommendations
- View history of CUD recommendations
For more information about the Recommender service, see the Recommender overview.
Understand commitment recommendations
Committed use discount recommendations let you identify spending and usage patterns in your Google Cloud projects. Your spending patterns generate recommendations for spend-based commitments, including Compute Engine flexible commitments, and your usage patterns on Compute Engine generate recommendations for resource-based commitments. The recommendations for resource-based commitments also account for your use of custom machine types on Compute Engine. Purchasing the recommended commitments helps you optimize your Google Cloud costs.
Permissions
Admin roles and viewer roles include the permissions that are required to view and update recommendations. If you are using custom roles, you must update the custom role to include the following individual permissions.
Permissions that are required to view
To view spend-based committed use discount recommendations:
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentRecommendations.get
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentRecommendations.list
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentInsights.get
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentInsights.list
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentRecommenderConfig.get
To view resource-based committed use discount recommendations:
recommender.usageCommitmentRecommendations.get
recommender.commitmentUtilizationInsights.get
recommender.usageCommitmentRecommendations.list
recommender.commitmentUtilizationInsights.list
Permissions that are required to modify
To modify spend-based committed use discount recommendations:
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentRecommendations.update
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentInsights.update
recommender.spendBasedCommitmentRecommenderConfig.update
To modify resource-based committed use discount recommendations:
recommender.usageCommitmentRecommendations.update
recommender.commitmentUtilizationInsights.update
Grant permissions
Assign the following roles for spend-based commitments and resource-based commitments where your Cloud Billing account is opted in for discount sharing:
- To view recommendations only, assign the Billing Account Viewer
(
roles/billing.viewer
) role. - To view and modify recommendations, assign the
Billing Account Administrator (
roles/billing.admin
) role.
Learn how to assign these roles to manage access to a Cloud Billing account
If you have not opted in for discount sharing for resource-based commitments, you need to assign different IAM roles. They must be assigned for each project in your Cloud Billing account that has purchased committed use discounts:
- To view recommendations only, assign the Viewer (
roles/viewer
) role to the projects. - To view and modify recommendations, assign the Owner (
roles/owner
) or Editor (roles/editor
) role to the projects.
Learn how to assign these roles to manage access to projects
View recommendations
There are different ways to view your committed use discount recommendations.
You can view all of your commitment recommendations in the Cost Recommendations dashboard, located in the Recommendations Hub in the Google Cloud console. These recommendations include new commitments for regions in which you don't currently have any, as well as additional commitments for regions where you have already purchased some.
To view only the additional recommendations in regions with existing commitments, navigate to the Billing section of the Google Cloud console and view the Committed use discounts page or the CUD analysis report.
To view the details of an individual commitment recommendation, access its recommendation summary card. The summary card is available in the Cost Recommendations dashboard located in the Commitments Recommendations Hub, and in the Committed use discounts page or the CUD analysis report located in the Billing section of the Google Cloud console.
To view the committed use discount recommendations for your Cloud Billing account, do one of the following:
To view | Instructions |
---|---|
To view all cost recommendations, including new commitment and additional commitment recommendations, access the Recommendations Hub. |
|
To view a list of existing commitments for a Cloud Billing account, including additional commitment recommendations, access the Committed use discounts (CUDs) dashboard located in the Billing section of the Google Cloud console. |
|
To view an individual analysis of each existing commitment that includes estimated savings in a recommendation banner, access the CUD analysis report located in the Billing section of the Google Cloud console. |
You can also navigate to the Recommendations Hub from the CUD analysis page by clicking Recommendations. |
Configure CUD recommendation settings
To customize your CUD recommendations, configure your recommendation settings:
- Go to the Committed use discounts (CUDs) page in the Billing section of the Google Cloud console.
- Select Configure recommendations
- Enter your preferred coverage threshold as a percentage. If the coverage threshold is less than the default 100%, the recommender produces only "optimal" recommendations.
- Choose your preferred commitment term duration(s).
View your recommendations by visiting the Recommendations page.
Understand recommendation summary cards
The following is an example of a recommendation summary card with the associated chart that explains how the recommendation is derived. At a high level, the recommendation is based on your resource utilization, and the chart shows you the level of utilization at which you'll save costs by signing up for a commitment.
To estimate the resource utilization at which you'll break even on your costs,
subtract the CUD discount percentage from 100. For example, if you get a
recommendation for a 1-year Cloud SQL CUD with a discount of 25%, the
resource utilization at which you'll break even is 100% - 25% = 75%
.
To understand the estimate, consider Cloud SQL usage of $100 at list
price. If your Cloud SQL instances run at 100% uptime, and you sign up
for a 1-year spend-based CUD at a 25% discount, you'll pay $100 - (25% of $100)
= $75
for your usage.
If the uptime for your Cloud SQL instances reduces to 80%, your list
price is $80, but with a commitment, you'd pay $75 for your usage, which still
gives you a ($80 - $75) / $80 = 0.0625
or a 6.25%
discount on the list price.
Similarly, at 75% uptime, your costs are the same as if you were paying the list price, and at less than 75% uptime, you no longer save money by signing up for a commitment.
The summary card displays the following:
Recommendation Details
Recommended CUD - Describes the type of CUD in scope on this recommendation (resource-based CUD or spend-based CUD). Click Help
to see an explanation for your recommendation.Commitment duration - Lets you choose the length of the commitment term, either 1 year or 3 years. Depending on the duration you choose, you might get a different Recommended CUD, because the discount for 3-year commitments is typically higher than 1-year commitments.
Resource type - Displays the resource applicable to the recommendation.
Usage covered - Shows the usage threshold that the recommendation is targeting based on your configuration settings.
Region - Displays the region hosting the resources.
CUD Cost & savings
- Estimated monthly cost - Displays your monthly costs for purchasing the commitment, and the percentage of savings on your usage costs compared to costs calculated at the on-demand rates. This cost is the commitment fee charge that you see in your bill.
Billing duration - Displays the frequency and duration you are billed the Estimated monthly cost for this commitment. For example, Monthly for 3 years.
Estimated monthly savings - Displays your monthly savings.
Savings scoped to - Displays the Cloud Billing account ID or the project, depending on the type of commitment recommended to purchase (resource-based CUD or spend-based CUD).
Recommendation Illustration
The bar chart reflects your usage over the last 30 days and your existing, active commitments. The chart displays the following, depending on your Recommended CUD and Resource Type:
- Usage at on-demand price - The eligible usage that is not being targeted by the recommendation.
- Usage covered by this recommended CUD purchase - The usage that will be covered and earn a committed use discount if you purchase the recommended commitement.
- Usage covered by existing spend-based CUD - The usage that is covered by your current spend-based commitments.
- Usage covered by existing flexible CUD - The usage that is covered by your current flexible commitments.
- Usage covered by existing resource-based CUD - The usage that is covered by your current resource-based commitments.
Apply and purchase recommendations
Recommendations for spend-based and resource-based commitments are purchased by accepting them from the summary card. To access the recommendations summary cards, see viewing recommendations.
When viewing the recommendations summary card for spend-based or resource-based commitments, select Review and purchase to apply the recommendation and start the purchase process.
Review and purchase recommendations
While viewing your commitment recommendations, access the summary card for the recommendation you'd like to purchase and proceed as follows:
Select your Commitment duration. Toggle between 1-year and 3-years to see your potential savings for each term.
Select the Usage covered. Toggle between Cover optimal usage to maximize savings and Cover lowest usage to see the estimated savings for each option.
To begin the purchase process for the commitment recommendation, click Review and purchase at the bottom of the card.
For spend-based commitment recommendations, review the pre-populated fields in the Purchase a committed use discount form for accuracy.
If your Cloud Billing account is billed in non-USD currency, your cost and savings estimates are displayed in both USD and your local currency.
Learn more about spend-based commitments, including Compute Engine flexible commitments
For resource-based commitment recommendations, you complete the purchase in the Compute Engine section of the Google Cloud console, using the Purchase a committed use discount form.
You might be prompted to select a project. This is the project where the commitments are purchased. Ensure that the Compute Engine API is enabled in the selected project, and that you have sufficient permissions on the project to purchase resource-based commitments.
The fields in the Purchase form are pre-populated based on the recommendation. Review the fields for accuracy, and update any values as needed.
Learn more about resource-based commitments for Compute Engine
To complete the purchase process, after reviewing the pre-populated fields in the Purchase Commitment form for accuracy, click Purchase.
Dismiss recommendations
To no longer see a particular recommendation, you can dismiss it. This prevents all users from seeing the recommendation in the Cost Recommendations dashboard, Committed use discounts dashboard, or the CUD analysis report.
To dismiss recommendations in the Cost Recommendations report, select the recommendation in the list and click Dismiss.
To dismiss a recommendation while viewing its summary card, select Dismiss at the bottom of the card.
Restore dismissed recommendations
You can restore dismissed recommendations in your Recommendation Hub
History.- View the history of your recommendations.
- To view commitment recommendations that have been dismissed, click the Dismissed tab.
- Select the commitment recommendation to be restored, then click Restore.
View history of recommendations
To view the history of commitment recommendations applied (purchased) and dismissed, do the following:
- From the Google Cloud console Navigation menu , select Cloud overview > Recommendations. Or select the Recommendations tab from the Google Cloud console home page.
- Click
- To view commitment recommendations that have been applied to your account, click the Applied tab.
- To view commitment recommendations that have been dismissed, click the Dismissed tab.
History.
Related topics
- Learn more about committed use discounts
- Analyze the effectiveness of your committed use discounts
- View the credits you are receiving in reports
- Understand your savings with cost breakdown reports