Google introduces new Cloud infrastructure pricing

New, in this case, meaning generally more expensive

Pricing changes coming to Google Cloud are likely to catch IT leaders, especially those on the budget side, by surprise. 

Google announced a series of cloud pricing changes going into effect October 1, 2022, that the company says will give customers more choice and flexibility in paying for storage, compute, and network products.

Google describes the move as being done to "align with how other leading cloud providers charge for similar products," which includes beginning to charge for services that were previously free of charge.

Google increases Cloud storage prices

The changes to Google Cloud storage pricing center on data mobility, inter-region access and multi- or dual-region storage bucket data replication. Most prices are increasing, but not all. 

• Multi-region nearline storage prices are increasing for all regions
• Coldline storage in the Asia multi-region will increase
• Archive storage in US, EU, and Asia multi-regions will decrease
• Dual-region standard storage is increasing in the NAM4, EUR4 and ASIA1 regions
• Dual-region nearline storage is increasing in the NAM4, EUR4, and ASIA1 regions
• Dual-region coldline and archive storage in the same regions will decrease

Additionally, all class A and B storage operations pricing will increase, data replication charges are being added and data reads from multi-region buckets to Google Cloud services will no longer be free, either. 

Google Cloud persistent disk adds new fees, raises prices

This change may be a welcomed one for those who use Google Cloud's persistent disk for archiving instead of compute-intensive tasks: A new cheaper archive snapshot option. 

Google said archive snapshots will be added in the second half of 2022 and will have the same features as standard snapshots. The "cheap" part comes in how it charges customers: A bit for the storage ($0.019/GB for regional, $0.024/GB for multi-region), and the same amount per GB when you want to create the initial snapshot. 

Standard regional and multi-regional snapshots are getting a price increase, too, from $0.026 per GB per month to $0.05 GB/month and $0.065 GB/month, respectively. 

Network topology is no longer free

Google Cloud Network Topology was a service introduced last year for free, but Google said it planned to eventually charge for it. That eventual time is this coming October, at which point it'll cost $0.0011 per resource hour used. 

Customers do get the Network Intelligence Center Performance Dashboard "at no additional charge," Google said. 

Cloud load balancing outbound data will now cost you

GCP customers that use Cloud Load Balancing will see a new line on their bill come October: "Outbound data processed by load balancer." The charge mirrors the existing inbound data rule of the same type. 

Prior to the October enactment of this fee, outbound data processed by Google Cloud Load Balancer was free. Now, expect to pay between $0.008 and $0.012 per GB.

Google said that customers under existing contracts with floating or fixed discounts won't be charged the new rate until renewal. ®