GCP FinOps Updates

GCP Cloud Cost Optimization News & Updates

Welcome the Google Cloud FinOps & Cloud Cost Optimization updates.

Every week, we’ll update this page with all the news that can  help you do cloud cost optimization in GCP.

 

October 11, 2025

BigQuery updates: daily on‑demand limits, reservations, transfers, and job priorities

Google Cloud posted BigQuery release notes covering several cost and resource management changes (Oct 07–08, 2025). BigQuery now sets a default QueryUsagePerDay limit of 200 TiB for all new projects using on‑demand pricing; existing projects got defaults based on their last 30 days of usage. Projects with custom cost controls or reservations aren’t affected. If the new limit could block your workloads, the release notes recommend creating a custom cost control.
Reservation management got more flexibility: you can set labels on reservations for organization and billing analysis, specify which reservation to use at query runtime, and attach IAM policies directly to reservations for finer access control. All these features are GA.
BigQuery Data Transfer Service can now import reporting data (including custom reports) from Google Analytics 4 (GA), and preview support was added for PayPal and Stripe as transfer sources. Dataform workflows can now choose job priority: interactive jobs (start immediately) or batch jobs (lower priority, cost‑efficient). Finally, note that starting March 17, 2026 the Data Transfer Service will require bigquery.datasets.setIamPolicy and bigquery.datasets.getIamPolicy permissions to create or update transfer setups.

October 4, 2025

Get Finer Control Over Your BigQuery Spend

BigQuery’s workload management features are now generally available, giving you more precise control over slot consumption. The autoscaler can now scale more immediately and in smaller increments of 50 slots instead of 100.

This is a huge win for managing bursty workloads and controlling costs. You can also now set maximum slot limits and specify which reservation a query uses, enabling much tighter governance over your BigQuery spend.

Track Your GKE Costs with More Granularity

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cost allocation is now generally available, allowing you to see cost breakdowns by cluster, namespace, and labels. This data is exported to BigQuery for detailed analysis.

This gives FinOps teams precise visibility into Kubernetes spend, making it much easier to attribute costs to specific teams or projects. It’s a crucial tool for showback, chargeback, and identifying optimization opportunities.

September 27, 2025

Cost-Effective Compute for Short Workloads with Flex-start VMs

Google Cloud announced that Flex-start VMs have reached General Availability. These instances, which can run for up to seven days, use a provisioning model that pulls from a secure capacity pool, increasing the chance of getting high-demand resources.

This is suitable for short-duration workloads that can start at any time, such as batch inference or model fine-tuning. For FinOps, it provides a cost-effective option for workloads that do not require the guarantees of standard or on-demand instances.

24th August, 2025

Track the Environmental Impact of Your AI

Here’s an interesting update on the “GreenOps” front. Google Cloud is making it easier to measure the environmental impact of your AI inference workloads.

You can now get data on the carbon emissions associated with running your AI models.

As sustainability becomes a bigger part of FinOps, this is a great tool for understanding and reporting on the carbon cost of your cloud usage, not just the financial cost.

17th August, 2025

New Cost Management Tools for Google Cloud

 They’ve just launched two new tools: Optimization Hub and Cost Explorer.

Optimization Hub gives you a central place to see all of your cost-saving recommendations, from idle resources to right-sizing suggestions. Cost Explorer is a new tool that makes it easier for developers to visualize and understand their spending.

These are fantastic new additions that bring Google’s native FinOps tooling to a new level, making it much easier for everyone to manage their GCP costs.

10th August, 2025

Google Gets Top Marks for FinOps!

Google is celebrating a big win! The analyst firm IDC has named Google Cloud a Leader in their MarketScape for Cloud FinOps.

This recognizes Google’s major investments in providing strong, user-friendly cost management tools.

For customers, it’s a good sign that Google is committed to helping you manage and optimize your cloud spend effectively.

25th July, 2025

Google CUDs Get More Flexible for Custom Pricing!

This is a big deal for customers with special pricing! Google Cloud’s Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) now support multiple prices for the same SKU.

Before, if you had different negotiated prices for the same virtual machine type, applying a CUD could be tricky.

Now, the system can handle it automatically, making it much easier to take full advantage of your commitments even with complex, custom pricing deals.

Older Updates

Here are additional FinOps updates we made that involve information about AWS Cloud Cost Optimization updates

FinOps Weekly
FinOps Weekly
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