Remediation

Before taking any action, review the instance's usage patterns in to confirm that underutilization is consistent and does not spike temporarily.

Downsize (Resize) the Instance

From gcloud CLI

If the instance is required but over-provisioned, you can resize it to a smaller, more cost-effective machine type:

gcloud sql instances patch {{instance-name}} \
    --cpu={{new-cpu}} 
    --memory={{new-memory}}
    [--tier={{new-machine-type}}] \
    --region={{region}}

Considerations

• Resizing may trigger a restart. Schedule changes during a maintenance window to minimize impact on availability.
• The --cpu and --memory flags are not compatible with the Enterprise Plus edition. For Enterprise Plus instances, the machine configuration is determined solely by the --tier flag and these flags should not be used.