Manage maintenance policies for a Looker (Google Cloud core) instance

Once per month, Looker (Google Cloud core) schedules maintenance periods during which your instance will be upgraded. During a maintenance period, your instance will be restarted and you will be temporarily unable to access your instance. You can specify a maintenance window for your instance in the form of a day of the week and time of day during which maintenance will take place. If you don't specify a preferred maintenance window, upgrades will take place within two weeks of the rollout of a new Looker (Google Cloud core) version. You can also specify aDeny Maintenance Period to block maintenance from taking place during the time that you specified.

If you specify aDeny Maintenance Period during which Looker (Google Cloud core) instances are being upgraded to the next supported Looker version, the features that are available in your Looker (Google Cloud core) instance may differ from the settings that the Google Cloud console states are available in the upgraded release.

Note: Downtime associated with maintenance does not apply towards the Looker (Google Cloud core) Service Level Agreement.

This page discusses finding scheduled maintenance, setting a preferred window for maintenance, specifying a maintenance deny period, and receiving and configuration settings for notifications about upcoming maintenance for a Looker (Google Cloud core) instance.

Required role

To get the permissions that you need to configure maintenance settings for a Looker (Google Cloud core) instance, ask your administrator to grant you theLooker Admin (roles/looker.admin) IAM role on the project in which the instance was created. For more information about granting roles, seeManage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions throughcustom roles or otherpredefined roles.

Maintenance settings

Looker (Google Cloud core) lets you configure maintenance updates through a set of maintenance settings.

You can configure maintenance to be scheduled at times when brief downtime causes the lowest impact to your instance. You can configure the following:

  • Maintenance Window: The day of the week and the hour in which Looker (Google Cloud core) schedules maintenance. Maintenance windows last for one hour.

  • Deny Maintenance Period: A block of days in which Looker (Google Cloud core) does not schedule maintenance. Deny maintenance periods can be up to 60 days long. You must allow at least 14 days of maintenance availability between any 2 deny maintenance periods.

You can update maintenance policies when youcreate your Looker (Google Cloud core) instance or byediting the configuration for an existing instance.

Set a preferred window for maintenance

Important: Security upgrades may be applied outside of a preferred maintenance window and may take place without notifications.

To specify a preferred window during which Looker (Google Cloud core) will schedule maintenance, select one of the following options:

console

  1. In the Google Cloud console,create a Looker (Google Cloud core) instance oredit the configuration for an existing Looker (Google Cloud core) instance.

  2. UnderMaintenance Window, in thePreferred Maintenance section, configure the following settings for the maintenance window:

    • Day: The day of the week on which your instance will be updated

    • Time window: The approximate time of the day that the instance maintenance will begin

    Note: Maintenance of your instance will start within an hour of the start time that you specified and will take approximately one hour.

  3. SelectSave.

gcloud

Use thegcloud looker instances create command if you're creating the instance, or use thegcloud looker instances update command if you're updating the instance, and include the following parameters:

--maintenance-window-day=MAINTENANCE_WINDOW_DAY--maintenance-window-time=MAINTENANCE_WINDOW_TIME

Replace the following:

  • MAINTENANCE_WINDOW_DAY: must be one of the following:friday,monday,saturday,sunday,thursday,tuesday,wednesday
  • MAINTENANCE_WINDOW_TIME: must be in UTC time in 24-hour format (for example, 13:00, 17:45)

Once you have specified a maintenance window, your changes to the setting will take up to a week to take effect.

Configure a deny maintenance period

If you want to defer the scheduled maintenance to a later time, you can change the instance's deny maintenance period. A deny maintenance period can be up to 60 days long.

You must allow at least 14 days of maintenance availability between any 2 deny maintenance periods.

Important: Security upgrades may be applied during a deny maintenance period and may take place without notifications.

To specify a preferred window during which Looker (Google Cloud core) won't perform maintenance, select one of the following options:

console

  1. In the Google Cloud console,create a Looker (Google Cloud core) instance, oredit the configuration for an existing Looker (Google Cloud core) instance.

  2. Under theDeny Maintenance Period section, configure the following settings for the deny maintenance period:

  • Start date: Choose the start date of the period during which maintenance will not occur.

  • End date: Choose the end date of the period during which maintenance will not occur.

  • Start/End time: Define the specific time at which theDeny Maintenance Period begins (on the date you specified forStart date) and ends (on the date you specified forEnd date).

  1. SelectSave.

gcloud

Use thegcloud looker instances create command if you're creating the instance, or use thegcloud looker instances update command if you're updating the instance, and include the following parameters:

--deny-maintenance-period-end-date=DENY_MAINTENANCE_PERIOD_END_DATE      --deny-maintenance-period-start-date=DENY_MAINTENANCE_PERIOD_START_DATE      --deny-maintenance-period-time=DENY_MAINTENANCE_PERIOD_TIME

Replace the following:

  • DENY_MAINTENANCE_PERIOD_START_DATE andDENY_MAINTENANCE_PERIOD_END_DATE: must be in the formatYYYY-MM-DD.
  • DENY_MAINTENANCE_PERIOD_TIME: must be in UTC time in 24-hour format (for example, 13:00, 17:45).

Maintenance example

As an example, you can set your production instance's maintenance settings as follows:

  • Maintenance Window: Sundays between 12:00 AM and 1:00 AM ET
  • Deny Maintenance Period: December 1 at 10:00 PM through January 15 at 10:00 PM

Upcoming maintenance notifications

Important: Security upgrades may take place without notifications, even if you turn on maintenance notifications.

You can have a notification about upcoming maintenance sent to your email up to one week before maintenance is scheduled. If you want to set an email filter for notifications, the email title is[Looker (Google Cloud core) Advanced Maintenance Notification] Your instance is scheduled for maintenance.

Maintenance notifications are not sent out by default. If you want to get a notification for an upcoming maintenance, you must follow all these steps:

  1. Set a maintenance window.
  2. Opt in to maintenance notifications at the project level.
  3. To receive notification about your scheduled maintenance, you need to complete both steps at least seven days before the next scheduled maintenance update for your Looker (Google Cloud core) instance.

Notifications are sent to the email address associated with your Google account. It's not possible to configure a custom email alias (for instance, a team email alias).

You can opt into maintenance notifications for all Looker (Google Cloud core) instances that have maintenance windows in a given project. You receive one notification per instance.

Opt in to maintenance notifications

Note: Even if you turn on maintenance notifications, you do not receive notifications unless youset a maintenance window for that instance.

To turn on maintenance notifications:

  1. Go to theCommunication page in the Google Cloud console:

    Communication

  2. Select theProduct Notifications tab.

  3. Select your project from the drop-down menu.

  4. In the row for Looker (Google Cloud core), set the email toggle toON.

Find scheduled maintenance

If maintenance has been scheduled for your instance, you can view it by following these steps:

  1. Go to theLooker (Google Cloud core) page in the Google Cloud console.

  2. Select the name of the instance that you want to view scheduled maintenance for.

  3. When youview configuration details for your instance, on theDETAILS page, you can view the following information:

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Last updated 2026-02-19 UTC.