Network Service Tiers overview

Network Service Tiers lets you optimize connectivity between systems onthe internet and your Google Cloud instances.Premium Tier deliverstraffic on Google's premium backbone, while Standard Tier uses regular ISPnetworks.

Use Premium Tier to optimize for performance, and use Standard Tier to optimizefor cost.

Google Cloud	Premium Tier	Standard Tier
Routing	Traffic between the internet and your application travels within the Google Cloud network to reach users	Uses peering, ISP, or transit networks to reach users
Security	Traffic is protected on Google Cloud's backbone until the last mile	Comparable to other public clouds
Networking features	Supports all Google Cloud networking features	Supports a foundational feature set including Cloud NAT, Regional external Application Load Balancer, and External passthrough Network Load Balancer
Pricing	Premium Tier pricing is at parity with other public cloud providers	Standard Tier pricing is cost-effective and at parity with other cloud providers
SLA	99.99% uptime	99.9% uptime

Outbound data transfer pricing for each of the Network Service Tiers is different. For moreinformation, seeNetwork Service Tiers pricing.

This diagram illustrates recommended use cases for Standard Tier and PremiumTier.

Network Service Tiers and Google Cloud resources

Google Cloud has two types of external IP addresses:global andregional.

External IP address type	Premium Tier	Standard Tier
Global external IPv4 and IPv6 addresses Publicly routable anycast IP addresses.	Supported	Not supported
Regional external IPv4 addresses Publicly routable IPv4 addresses designated for use by Google Cloud resources that fit within a single Google Cloud region	Supported	Supported when IP addresses are used with eligible resources. Not supported for IP addresses imported to Google Cloud usingbring your own IP (BYOIP).
Regional external IPv6 addresses Publicly routable IPv6 addresses designated for use by Google Cloud resources that fit within a single Google Cloud region	Supported	Not supported

Regardless of which tier you use, the network is designed to keep trafficbetween virtual machine (VM) instances that are in the same or different regionson Google's network, including when a load balancer is on the path. This is truewhether the traffic uses publicly or privately routable IP addresses.

Note: Regional external IP addresses can be contacted from anywhere on theinternet. The termregional indicates that the Google Cloud resourcesmust all be in a single Google Cloud region. The tier that you choose fora regional external IP address only affects thepath that network traffic fromthe internet takes when contacting the Google Cloud resource.

The following table describes how Network Service Tiers applies toGoogle Cloud resources and what type of external IP address must be used.

In the table, a indicates that aresource is supported in a network tier, andindicates that it is not supported.

Google Cloud resource	Premium Tier	Standard Tier
Global external Application Load Balancer Global external proxy Network Load Balancer Classic Application Load Balancer Classic proxy Network Load Balancer	Requires a global external IP address.	Requires a regional external IP address.
Regional external Application Load Balancer Regional external proxy Network Load Balancer External passthrough Network Load Balancer	Requires a regional external IP address.	Requires a regional external IP address.
VM instances, including GKE node VMs	Requires a regional external IP address.	Requires a regional external IP address.
Cloud VPN gateways	Requires a regional external IP address.	Not supported.
Cloud NAT gateways	Requires a regional external IP address.	Requires a regional external IP address.

The following table shows how Network Service Tiers applies to Cloud Storageand Cloud CDN.

Google Cloud service	Premium Tier	Standard Tier
Cloud Storage	By default, access to Cloud Storage buckets is considered Premium Tier, whether or not the bucket is used as a backend for an external Application Load Balancer.	Standard Tier is an option only if you use a Cloud Storage bucket as a backend for an external Application Load Balancer. For more information, seeUsing Standard Tier with Cloud Storage.
Cloud CDN	Cloud CDN is always Premium Tier.	You cannot use Standard Tier with Cloud CDN.

Standard Tier availability

Standard Tier is available to resources that use regional external IP addressesin all regions. In addition, to use Standard Tier for Cloud Storagebuckets acting as backends for an external Application Load Balancer, the load balancer must use aregional external IP address and also select Standard Tier.

Traffic routing

This table summarizes the differences in routing for each of theNetwork Service Tiers.

Traffic	Premium Tier	Standard Tier
Inbound data transfer to Google Cloud	Traffic from an internet user enters Google's network through peering or transit networks in a Google point of presence (PoP) that's as close as possible to the internet user. More specifically, Google Cloud advertises next hops for Premium Tier IP addresses to peering and transit networks in PoPs across the entire Google global network. These next hops are advertised with equivalent BGP metrics. This encourages the peering and transit networks to deliver traffic to a PoP that's as close as possible to the internet user.	Traffic from an internet user enters Google's network through peering or transit networks in a Google point of presence (PoP) that's as close as possible to the region of the Standard Tier IP address. This is accomplished by exclusively advertising the best BGP metrics with next hops in PoPs close to the region of the Standard Tier IP address. The set of closest peering PoPs eligible for Standard Tier routing for each region is selected to minimize network distance traveled on the Google global network. Note that the closest peering PoPs might not be in the same country as the region of a Standard Tier IP address, and the selection of the closest peering PoPs doesn't optimize for performance. Standard Tier traffic might be routed as Premium Tier in rare circumstances, such as when there are no peering or transit networks with reachability to an internet user from the closest Google PoPs.
Outbound data transfer from Google Cloud	Outbound traffic is sent on theBGP best path to an internet user, which typically routes traffic over the Google global network to a point of presence (PoP) that's as close as possible to the internet user. Peering or transit networks then provide connectivity between the Google PoP and the internet user. Peering and transit networks can each advertise multiple next hops with equivalent BGP metrics for a single internet user in many points of presence (PoPs). When BGP best path next hops exist in two or more Google PoPs, the Google Cloud resource selects the next hop in the PoP which minimizes network distance within the Google global network. Depending on the network architecture of the BGP best path peering or transit network, selecting the BGP best path route that minimizes network distance within the Google global network can result in selecting a PoP that'snot as close as possible to the internet user. When an internet user exists in a network that peers with the Google global network in multiple locations, Google Cloud doesn't guarantee that outbound traffic remains on the Google global network until it as close as possible to the internet user.	Outbound traffic is sent through a peering or transit network in a point of presence (PoP) near the region of the Standard Tier IP address. Peering or transit networks then provide connectivity between the Google PoP and the internet user. The preference of nearby PoPs is enforced as long as there is at least one peering or transit next hop advertising reachability to the internet user from a nearby PoP, even if that next hop isn't the BGP best path on Google's global network. The set of PoPs closest to the region are selected to minimize the network distance traveled on the Google global network. The closest PoPs might not be in the same country as the region of the Standard Tier IP address. Standard Tier traffic might be routed as Premium Tier in rare circumstances, such as when there are no peering or transit networks in the closest PoPs, or when there is insufficient steady traffic between the region and the internet user.

Premium Tier

Premium Tier delivers traffic from external systems to Google Cloudresources by using Google's low latency, highly reliable global network. Thisnetwork consists of an extensive private fiber network with over200points of presence (PoPs) around the globe.This network is designed to tolerate multiple failures and disruptions whilestill delivering traffic.

Premium Tier supports both regional external IP addresses and global external IPaddresses for VM instances and load balancers. All global external IP addressesmust use Premium Tier. Applications that require high performance andavailability, such as those that use external Application Load Balancers and external proxy Network Load Balancers,with backends in more than one region, require Premium Tier.Premium Tier is ideal for customers with users in multiple locations worldwidewho need the best network performance and reliability.

With Premium Tier, incoming traffic from systems on the internet enters Google'shigh-performance network at the PoP closest to the sending system. WithinGoogle's network, traffic is routed from that PoP to the VM in yourVirtual Private Cloud (VPC) network or closest Cloud Storage bucket.Outbound traffic is sent through Google's network, exiting at the PoP closest toits destination. This routing method minimizes congestion and maximizesperformance by reducing the number of hops between end users and the PoPsclosest to them.

We offer a 99.99% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Premium TierVMs. As defined in theCompute Engine Service Level Agreement, a VM that losesexternal connectivity for more than a minute is considered to be in downtime(100% packet loss). For an example of how the Compute Engine SLA workswith VMs with multiple NICs, seeOverview of the SLA for Compute Engine networking.

Standard Tier

Standard Tier delivers traffic from external systems to Google Cloudresources by routing it over the internet. It leverages the double redundancy ofGoogle's network only up to the point where Google's data center connects to apeering PoP. Packets that leave Google's network are delivered using thepublic internet and are subject to the reliability of intervening transitproviders and ISPs. Standard Tier provides network quality and reliabilitycomparable to that of other cloud providers.

Regional external IP addresses can use either Premium Tier or Standard Tier.

Standard Tier is priced lower than Premium Tier because traffic from systems onthe internet is routed over transit (ISP) networks before being sent to VMs inyour VPC network or regional Cloud Storage buckets.Standard Tier outbound traffic normally exits Google's network from the sameregion used by the sending VM or Cloud Storage bucket, regardless ofits destination. In rare cases, such as during a network event, trafficmight not be able to travel out the closest exit and might be sent out anotherexit, perhaps in another region.

Standard Tier offers a lower-cost alternative for the following use cases:

• You have applications that are not latency or performance sensitive.
• You're deploying VM instances or using Cloud Storage that can all bewithin a single region.

Google Cloud offers a 99.9% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) forStandard Tier VMs. As defined in theCompute Engine Service Level Agreement, a VM that losesexternal connectivity for more than a minute is considered to be in downtime(100% packet loss). For an example of how the Compute Engine SLA worksfor VMs with multiple NICs, seeOverview of the SLA for Compute Engine networking.

Free tier

Standard Tier includes a Free Tier, providing 200 GB of free Standard Tierusage per month in each region that you use across all of your projects, on aper SKU basis. You don't need to take any action to use the Free Tier, butwe recommend that you check all projects in your billing account to ensure thattheir combined usage in each region does not exceed the 200 GB limit.

Choosing a tier

It is important to choose the tier that meets your needs.

The following decision tree can help you decide which of theNetwork Service Tiers is right for your use case. Because you choose a tierat the resource level—such as the external IP address for a loadbalancer or VM—you can use Standard Tier for some resources and PremiumTier for others. If you are not sure which tier to use, choose Premium Tier,which is the default.

Project-level (default: Premium Tier)

• Specify tier at the project level

Resource-level (default: Premium Tier)

• Load balancing: Enable for a forwarding rule.
• Instance: Enable for a VM or instance template.
• Other resource-level knobs in the future.

The final tier for a resource is determined as follows:

• If a tier is configured for either a resource or the project in which theresource resides, then that tier applies to the resource.

• If tiers are configured for both the project and the resource, then theresource-level tier takes precedence for that resource.

Using Standard Tier with Cloud Storage

To use Standard Tier with Cloud Storage, you must configureyour storage bucket as the backend of the Google Cloud load balancer. TheCloud Storage bucket must be in the same region as the forwarding rule.If they are in different regions, requests to the bucket produce an error.To use multi-regional Cloud Storage buckets as backends, you must usePremium Tier.

Upgrading a resource from Standard Tier to Premium Tier

Google Cloud designates separate pools of external IP addresses forPremium Tier and Standard Tier.

When an IP address is configured for an instance or load balancer, it isallocated from either of these two pools based on the network tierin effect for that resource.

Two separate pools for Premium Tier and Standard Tier entail the following:

• If you change the tier of an instance with an ephemeral IP address, the IPaddress of the instance changes as well.
• An IP address from one pool cannot be moved to the other pool.
• IP addresses in Standard Tier in one region cannot be moved toanother region even if the tier remains the same.

Configure Standard Tier for load balancing

Use the following instructions to configure Standard Tier for a variety of loadbalancers.

Configuring Standard Tier for external passthrough Network Load Balancers

To configure an external passthrough Network Load Balancer to use Standard Tier, specifyStandard Tier when creating theIP addressandforwarding rulefor the load balancer.

If you want to change an existing load balancer from Premium Tier (the default)to Standard Tier, or from Standard Tier to Premium Tier, you must delete theexisting load balancer forwarding rule, and then create a new one that points tothe existing target pool. You must also use a Standard Tier IP address with theStandard Tier forwarding rule.

Configure Standard Tier for classic Application Load Balancers and classic proxy Network Load Balancers

If you don't specify a network tier, your load balancer defaults to usingPremium Tier. All load balancers that existed prior to the introduction ofNetwork Service Tiers use Premium Tier. Premium Tier enablesglobal load balancing, where a single IP address can point to backends inregions around the world. Standard Tier is a regional service only.

To use Standard Tier, your load balancer must meet the following criteria:

• It must use a Standard Tier regional IP address.
• It must use a Standard Tier regional forwarding rule.
• It can have backends in the region that contains the forwarding rule only.

The following diagram illustrates the global nature of classic Application Load Balancersand classic proxy Network Load Balancers when they are configured to use Premium Tier.

To use Standard Tier with a classic Application Load Balancer or aclassic proxy Network Load Balancer, you must decide upon asingle Google Cloudregion, and then use aregional external IP address and aregional forwardingrule, both configured for Standard Tier, to point to the appropriate targetHTTP(S) proxy, target SSL proxy, or target TCP proxy.

The IP address of the load balancer is still external, so clients from anywhereon the internet can send traffic to it, but all of your backends mustbe located in the region that you chose.

With Standard Tier, traffic sent to the load balancer traverses the internetuntil it reaches a transit peering point at the Google Cloud region thatyou have chosen for the load balancer. A Google Front End (GFE) acts as theproxy, terminating HTTP(S), SSL, or TCP, and then contacting backends in yourchosen region. Because all of your backend VMs are located in one region, thetraffic from the original client to the GFE is subject to additional hops andpotential latency.

Standard Tier changes the behavior of classic Application Load Balancers andclassic proxy Network Load Balancers so that they operate like those of other cloudproviders. Standard Tier eliminates the ability for these types of loadbalancers to operate in multiple Google Cloud regions.

The following diagram illustrates the regional nature of classic Application Load Balancersand classic proxy Network Load Balancers when they are configured to use Standard Tier. Ifyou want to operate a Standard Tier-based load balancing deployment in multipleregions, you'll need to create a separate load balancer in each region where youwant to receive traffic. Each load balancer has its own regional external IPaddress. The region used for that IP address and forwarding rule matches theregion where the backend VMs are located.

When creating a regional external IP address resource in Standard Tier, you mustspecify the network tier of the regional external IP address as Standard. Afterthe network tier is set to Standard, it cannot be updated to Premium. To changea load balancer to Premium Tier, you must reserve a new Premium Tier IP address.

If you want to change an existing load balancer from Premium Tier (the default)to Standard Tier, you must do the following:

1. Remove any backends that are in regions other than the one that contains yourforwarding rule for the existing load balancer.

2. Delete the existing forwarding rule and IP address, and then create a newStandard Tier regional forwarding rule and an IP address that point to theexisting target proxy.

Upgrading large volumes of traffic from Standard Tier to Premium Tier

It is important to correctly identify and use the tier that best suits yourrequirements.

When you make your selection, take into account these two important restrictions:

• You cannot use Premium Tier networking as a backup for Standard Tier. If,during an outage for Standard Tier networking (for example, because of a fibercut), you reclassify your traffic as Premium Tier, it is treated as StandardTier for the duration of the outage.

• If you plan to move more than 5 Gbps of traffic fromStandard Tier to Premium Tier independent of an outage, you must contactyour account manager.

Premium Tier and Standard Tier summary

		Premium Tier	Standard Tier
Use case		Performance optimized Global network Global network services	Cost optimized Regional network Regional network services
Network	Routing	Inbound: Traffic across the globe enters Google's global network at a location near your user. Outbound: Your outbound traffic rides Google's high-quality global backbone network to the Google global edge PoP that is geographically closest to your user.	Inbound: Traffic enters Google's network by peering or transit only in the region in which you have deployed the destination Google Cloud resources. Outbound: Traffic is sent to the internet by peering or transit that is local to the Google Cloud region where the traffic originates.
Network services	External Application Load Balancer	Supports global, regional, and classic modes Terminates TCP as close to the user as possible, worldwide	Supports regional and classic modes Supports backend VMs in a single region To support multiple regions, requires DNS and multiple Google Cloud load balancers (one load balancer per region) Terminates TCP in the destination region
	Internal Application Load Balancer	Cross-region or regional	Standard Tier is not available for internal Application Load Balancers.
	External proxy Network Load Balancer	Supports global, regional, and classic modes Terminates TCP as close to the user as possible, worldwide	Supports regional and classic modes Supports backend VMs in a single region To support multiple regions, requires DNS and multiple Google Cloud load balancers (one load balancer per region) Terminates TCP in the destination region
	Internal proxy Network Load Balancer	Regional	Standard Tier is not available for internal proxy Network Load Balancers.
	External passthrough Network Load Balancer	Regional external passthrough Network Load Balancer is supported in Premium Tier	Regional external passthrough Network Load Balancer is supported in Standard Tier
	Internal passthrough Network Load Balancer	Regional	Standard Tier is not available for internal passthrough Network Load Balancers.
	Cloud CDN	Only Premium Tier	Standard Tier is not available for Cloud CDN.
Pricing		$/GB based on usage Premium Tier costs more than Standard Tier. Pricing details	$/GB based on usage Standard Tier is priced lower than Premium Tier. Pricing details
SLA		99.99% uptime	99.9% uptime

Frequently asked questions

Which network tier does Google recommend using for my network serviceson Google Cloud?

We recommend using Premium Tier so that you can deliver your services on Google'shigh-quality network and take advantage of premium cloud network services such asglobal load balancing and Cloud CDN. If you don't explicitly select anetwork tier, you use Premium Tier by default.

How can I switch my load balancer from Standard Tier back to Premium Tier?

To switch your load balancer, follow these steps:

1. Create a new load balancer forwarding rule that uses a Premium Tier IPaddress.
2. Use DNS to slowly migrate traffic from your current Standard Tier IP addressto the new Premium Tier IP address.
3. After the migration is complete, you can release the Standard Tier IPaddresses and the regional load balancers associated with them. You don'tneed to change your backends because you can have multiple load balancerspointing to the same backends.

What are the relative costs of using Premium Tier versus Standard Tier?

Standard Tier is priced lower than Premium Tier for $/GB. For more information,seeNetwork Service Tiers pricing.

I want to test the performance of Premium Tier and Standard Tier. Whichconfiguration do you recommend testing with?

You can test the performance of Premium Tier and Standard Tier with anyconfiguration that is representative of your requirements.

Can I apply Standard Tier to internal traffic within a VPCnetwork?

You can enable Standard Tier for internet-facing traffic on external IPaddresses only. VM instances that use internal IP addresses withinVPC networks to communicate always use Google Cloud'sPremium Tier networking infrastructure, but with standardVM-VM outbound data transfer pricing.

What's next

• To specify a network tier for your workloads, seeUsing Network Service Tiers.