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Remediation

Old snapshots should managed through automated schedules for ongoing governance.

Create a Snapshot Lifecycle Policy​

To prevent accumulation of old snapshots, configure a snapshot schedule for your persistent disks. This schedule automates snapshot creation and cleanup, ensuring future snapshots older than a set duration (e.g., 90 days) are automatically deleted.

Using gcloud CLI​

  1. Create a snapshot schedule:

    gcloud compute resource-policies create snapshot-schedule {{schedule-name}} \
        --region={{region}} \
        --start-time={{13:00}} \
        {{--daily-schedule | --hourly-schedule={{hours}} | --weekly-schedule={{weekly-cycle}}}} \
        --max-retention-days={{90}} \
        --on-source-disk-delete=apply-retention-policy

  2. Attach the schedule to a persistent disk:

    gcloud compute disks add-resource-policies {{disk-name}} \
        --resource-policies={{schedule-name}} \
        --zone={{zone}}

Note: Existing snapshots older than 90 days are not retroactively deleted when applying a schedule, they must be handled manually.

Delete the Snapshot​

From gcloud CLI​

If the snapshot is no longer required, delete it to immediately reduce storage usage and costs:

gcloud compute snapshots delete {{snapshot-name}}

Note: Ensure the snapshot is not required for disaster recovery, compliance, or restoration before deleting.