This document explains how to view usage and forecast data for your resources in Capacity Planner. To learn more about Capacity Planner, see Capacity Planner overview.
You can view the usage and forecast data for the following resources:
Compute Engine instances, including vCPUs, RAM, and Local SSD disks attached to the instances.
Persistent Disk volumes, whether they are attached to instances or not.
GPUs, whether they are attached to instances or not.
TPUs
Usage data helps you optimize your resources usage, and plan for future capacity and quota needs in your project, folder, or organization.
Limitations
Before you view usage and forecast data in Capacity Planner, consider the following:
The Usage and forecast by resource type graph has the following limitations:
You can only view quota for your compute instances, GPUs, or TPUs when you do all of the following:
You view usage and forecast data in your project.
You filter the graph by a single machine family, GPU type, or TPU type.
For instances and GPUs, you filter the graph by region. For TPUs, to view quota for Google Kubernetes Engine, filter the graph by region; to view quota for Cloud TPU, filter by zone.
You can only view reservations and future reservation requests when you do both of the following:
You view usage and forecast data for instances or GPUs.
You view usage and forecast data in the project where you created the reservations, the folder containing this project, or your organization.
You can only view the Usage and forecast by machine types table when you view usage and forecast data for instances or GPUs.
Before you begin
- If you can't access Capacity Planner in the Google Cloud console, then your organization might not be eligible to access and use Capacity Planner. To request access, contact your Technical Account Manager (TAM) or the Sales team.
Required roles
To get the permissions that you need to view the usage and forecast data of your resources, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on your project, folder, or organization:
-
To access and view Capacity Planner:
Capacity Planner Viewer (
roles/capacityplanner.viewer)
For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.
These predefined roles contain the permissions required to view the usage and forecast data of your resources. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:
Required permissions
The following permissions are required to view the usage and forecast data of your resources:
-
To view forecast data:
capacityplanner.forecasts.liston the project, folder, or organization -
To view historical usage data:
capacityplanner.usageHistories.liston the project, folder, or organization -
To summarize the historical usage data:
capacityplanner.usageHistories.summarizeon the project, folder, or organization
You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.
Data availability and updates
When you view usage and forecast data in Capacity Planner, consider the following:
Capacity Planner displays data as follows:
Historical usage data: you can view historical usage data from within the past two years. For reservations, historical usage data is only available from August 1, 2024.
Forecast data: you can view forecast data up to six months in the future.
Historical usage data updates every 24 hours.
View the forecast and usage of your resources
View the usage and forecast data about the compute instances, Persistent Disk volumes, GPUs, and TPUs in your project, folder, or organization by doing the following:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Capacity Planner page.
When the Capacity Planner page appears, filter the UI elements to see different data visualizations for the usage and forecast data of the resources in your project, folder, or organization.
Optional: To change project, folder, or organization, in the project picker at the top of the page, select a project, folder, or organization.
Select the type of Compute Engine resource for which you want to view usage data:
To view instance usage data, click the Virtual machine tab.
To view Persistent Disk volume usage data, click the Disk tab.
To view GPUs usage data, click the GPU tab.
To view TPUs usage data, click the TPU tab.
The following sections outline the different UI elements on the Capacity Planner page in the Google Cloud console.
Machine family distribution for a selected location
The Machine family distribution for a selected location chart shows the distribution of a single or all machine families across the locations where you created compute instances. By default, the chart shows the most used machine family in the last 30 days.
Region distribution for a selected machine family
The Region distribution for a selected machine family chart shows the distribution of a single or all machine families across all regions and zones where your compute instances exist. By default, the chart shows the region with the highest usage in the last 30 days.
Usage and forecast by Compute Engine resource type
Capacity Planner provides graphs that show usage trends (50th, 75th, or 99th percentile) and forecasts (lower bound, upper bound, and median) for your compute instances, Persistent Disk volumes, GPUs, or TPUs. The graph that you see depends on the resource that you're viewing:
Usage and forecast by machine family or Usage and forecast by machine type: This graph shows the usage, forecast, reservations (if any), and quota of the Local SSD disks, RAM, or vCPUs of your instances, filtered by both of the following:
Machine family or machine type
Location
Usage and forecast by disk type: This graph shows the usage, forecast, and quota for your Persistent Disk volumes, filtered by disk type and location.
Usage and forecast by GPU type: This graph shows the usage, forecast, reservations (if any), and quota for your GPUs, filtered by GPU type and location.
Usage and forecast by TPU type: This graph shows the usage, forecast, and quota for your TPUs, filtered by TPU version and location.
By default, the Usage and forecast by machine family graph showing the most used machine family and region in the last 30 days appears. This graph also shows the following:
The 99th percentile usage for your instances.
The upper bound of a prediction interval of 50.
Any reservations or future reservation requests as follows:
In a project or folder, you can see single-project reservations.
In an organization, you can see single-project and shared reservations.
To show or hide options in the graph, click More options, and then click the respective toggles to the on or off position. Capacity Planner updates the calculated future reservations data every 60 minutes.
Additionally, if you are viewing usage and forecast data of a Compute Engine resource in your project, and your project has sufficient usage data, the Enable quota adjuster button appears. Click it to enable the quota adjuster in your project.
Usage and forecast by machine types
The Usage and forecast by machine types table shows historical and forecasted usage for the following Compute Engine resources:
When you view the usage data of your compute instances, the table shows the forecasted usage for a selected machine family and location.
When you view the usage data of your GPUs, the table shows the forecasted usage for a selected GPU type and location.
Capacity Planner presents data as follows:
At the 50th, 75th, or 99th percentile.
Broken down by individual machine type and zone.
Filtered by instances, CPU cores (if applicable), or GPUs (if applicable).
The table includes the following columns:
Machine type: the details of each machine type in the selected machine family, including vCPUs, RAM, attached Local SSD disks (if any), and GPU type (if any).
Zone: the zone where each machine type is located.
Max of NTH percentile RESOURCE usage: the maximum number of instances that used each machine type, calculated using your selected percentile.
Max of NTH forecast MONTH: the maximum number of instances that are expected to use each machine type in a specific month, calculated using your selected percentile. The table contains a separate column for up to six months in the future.
Reservations: the existing reservations, as well as past and existing future reservation requests. The table shows the data broken down by machine type and zone, and calculated using your selected percentile. If there are reservations or future reservation requests for a specific machine type and zone, click the Details button. A pane appears showing the following:
In the Usage by CPU platform section, the percentage breakdown of minimum CPU platforms for that machine type and zone.
In the VM forecast for date range section, the forecast number of instances over your selected date range for the selected percentile usage.
In the Reservations by CPU platform section, the existing reservations and future reservation requests grouped by CPU platform.
Except for the percentage breakdown by machine type, Capacity Planner rounds all values to the nearest whole number.
By default, the table shows the 99th percentile usage and a prediction interval of 50% for the most used machine type in the most active location over the past 30 days. To view the future reservation requests during your chosen forecast dates, click Future reservations in forecast range.
What's next
Learn how to export usage and forecast data.
Learn how to enable the quota adjuster.
Learn how to reserve capacity from actual or forecasted usage.