# Missing Scheduled Shutdown for Non-Production Compute Engine Instances

Canonical: https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/missing-scheduled-shutdown-for-non-production-compute-engine-instances

[Cloud Efficiency Hub](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub) 

# Missing Scheduled Shutdown for Non-Production Compute Engine Instances

## Explanation

Development and test environments on Compute Engine are commonly provisioned and left running around the clock, even if only used during business hours. This results in wasteful spend on compute time that could be eliminated by scheduling shutdowns during idle periods. GCP enables scheduling via native tools such as Cloud Scheduler, Cloud Functions, or Terraform automation. Stopping VMs during off-hours preserves boot disks and instance metadata while halting compute billing.

## Relevant Billing Model

Compute Engine instances are billed per second (minimum of one minute) based on:

- Instance type and configuration

- Runtime duration

- Additional resources (e.g., persistent disks, external IPs) are billed separately

## Detection

- Identify VMs in dev/test environments using labels, folders, or project naming conventions

- Analyze instance uptime using Cloud Monitoring or billing export data

- Detect instances with consistent 9-to-5 usage but continuous runtime

- Check whether startup/shutdown schedules are already in place

## Remediation

- Use Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Functions to automate VM stop/start workflows

- Preserve instance configuration and state using persistent disks or custom images

- Align schedules to working hours and review regularly with workload owners

- Consider integrating automation with CI/CD tools or environment provisioning scripts

## Relevant Documentation

- [Schedule Compute Engine VM Start and Stop](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/schedule-instance-start-stop/%22)

- [Managing VM Instances](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/)

[Submit Feedback](https://hub.pointfive.co/inefficiencies/missing-scheduled-shutdown-for-non-production-compute-engine-instances)

## At a glance

Reference

CER-0095

Cloud provider

GCP

Service

GCP Compute Engine

Category

[Compute](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/service-category/compute)

Inefficiency type

Inefficient Configuration

## Contributed by

- ### Yulia Perlis

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