In my current role as a Cloud Engineer, I work regularly with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), especially Compute Engine, to host and run our applications. A primary focus of my job is optimizing Compute Engine usage to ensure both performance and cost efficiency.
One significant project involved migrating a client's e-commerce site from another cloud provider to GCP. I resized the VM instances for cost-effectiveness, using Custom Machine Types to tailor the CPU and memory requirements to the specific needs of the application. I also enabled the rightsizing recommendations feature in Google Cloud Console, which provides intelligent, fine-tuned suggestions for downsizing or upsizing based on the actual usage.
Our use of Committed Use Contracts allowed us to save significantly on long-term costs, while the use of preemptible VMs for non-critical background tasks contributed to further savings. As a result, we were able to reduce the client's cloud expenditure by approximately 30%, while maintaining the performance levels.