Use system insights to improve system performance

MySQL  |  PostgreSQL  |  SQL Server

Preview

This feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of theService Specific Terms. Pre-GA features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see thelaunch stage descriptions.

This page describes how you can use the Cloud SQL System insights dashboard.The System insights dashboard displays metrics for the resources that yourinstance uses and helps you detect and analyze system performance problems.

You can use Gemini in Databases assistance to help you observe andtroubleshoot your Cloud SQL for MySQL resources. For more information, seeObserve and troubleshoot with Gemini assistance.

View the System insights dashboard

To view the System insights dashboard, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to theCloud SQL Instances page.

    Go to Cloud SQL Instances

  2. Click the name of an instance.
  3. Select theSystem insights tab from the SQL navigation panel on the left.

The System insights dashboard opens.

Dashboard image showing metrics and events timeline.
Figure 1. Dashboard image showing events timeline and summary cards.

The System insights dashboard shows the following information:

  1. Your instance details

  2. Events timeline:shows the system events, in a chronological order.This information helps you evaluate the impact of system events on the healthand performance of the instance.

  3. Summary cards:provide an overview of the instance health and performance by displaying thelatest and aggregated values for the CPU utilization, disk utilization, andlog errors metrics.

  4. Metrics charts: show theinformation about the operating system and database metrics that help you gaininsight into several issues, such as throughput, latency, and cost.

The dashboard offers the following high-level options:

  • To create a customized dashboard, clickCustomize dashboard.
  • To keep the dashboard up to date, enable theAuto Refresh option. When you enableAuto Refresh, the dashboard dataupdates every minute. This feature isn't compatible with customized timeperiods.

  • The time selector shows1 day selected by default. To change the period,select one of the other predefined periods or clickCustom and define astart and end time. Data is available for the last 30 days.

  • To create an absolute link to the dashboard, click theCopy Link button.You can share this link with other Cloud SQL users who have the samepermissions.

  • To create an alert for a specific event, clickNotification.

  • To display specific alerts, clickAnnotations.

Summary cards

The following table describes the summary cards displayed at the top of the SystemInsights dashboard. These cards provide a brief overview of the instance's healthand performance during the chosen time period.

Summary cardDescription
CPU utilization - P50The P50 CPU utilization values.
CPU utilization - P99The P99 CPU utilization values.
Disk utilizationThe latest disk utilization value.
Log errorsThe number of errors that were logged.

Metrics charts

The toolbar on each chart card provides the following set of standard options:

  • To view metric values for a specific moment in the selected period, move thecursor over the chart.

  • To zoom in on a chart, click the chart and drag horizontally along the x-axisor vertically along the y-axis. To revert the zoom operation, clickReset zoom. Or, click one of the predefined time periods at the top of thedashboard. Zoom operations apply at the same time to all charts on a dashboard.

  • To view additional options, clickMore chart options. Most charts offer these options:

    • To view a chart in full-screen mode, clickView in full screen. To exitfull-screen mode, clickCancel.

    • Hide or collapse the legend.

    • Download a PNG or CSV file of the chart.

    • View in Metrics Explorer. View the metric inMetrics Explorer.You can view other Cloud SQL metrics in the Metrics Explorer afterselecting theCloud SQL Database resource type.

  • To create a custom dashboard, clickCustomize dashboard and give it a name. Or, expand thePredefined menuand select an existing custom dashboard.

  • To view a metric chart's data in detail, clickExplore data. Here, you can filter specific metrics and choose how thechart displays:

    Customizable view of Cloud SQL metric data.

    To save this customized view as a metric chart, clickSave to dashboard.

Default metrics

The following table describes the Cloud SQL metrics that appear by defaulton the Cloud SQL System insights dashboard.

Note: Cloud SQL for MySQL instances with more than 500databases report a single aggregated value for database metrics.

Metric name and typeDescription
Query latency
dbinsights.googleapis.com/
aggregate/latencies

The aggregated query latency distribution by P99, P95, and P50 per user and database.

Only available for instances withquery insights enabled.

Database load per database/user/client address
dbinsights.googleapis.com/
aggregate/execution_time

The accumulated query execution time per database, user, or client address. This is the sum of CPU time, I/O wait time, lock wait time, process context switch, and scheduling for all processes involved in query execution.

Only available for instances withquery insights enabled.

CPU utilization
cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/cpu/utilization

The current CPU utilization represented as a percentage of the reserved CPU that's currently in use.

MySQL connections
cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/network/connections

The number of connections held by the database instance.

Ingress/egress bytes

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/network/received_bytes_count


cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/network/sent_bytes_count

The network traffic in terms of the number of ingress bytes (bytes received) and egress bytes (bytes sent) to and from the instance, respectively.

Memory components

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/memory/components

The memory components available to the database as usage, cache, and free memory. The value for each memory component is calculated as the percentage of the total memory available to the database.
MySQL queries
cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/queries
The number of statements executed by the server. This includes statements executed within stored programs, such as stored procedures and functions.
MySQL questions
cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/questions
The number of statements executed by the server. This includes only the statements sent to the server by the clients and not the statements executed within stored programs.
MySQL network traffic
cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/received_bytes_count

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/sent_bytes_count
The number of bytes received from and sent to the clients.
InnoDB pages

  • InnoDB dirty pages
    cloudsql.googleapis.com/
    database/mysql/innodb_buffer_pool_pages_dirty
  • InnoDB free pages
    cloudsql.googleapis.com/
    database/mysql/innodb_buffer_pool_pages_free
  • InnoDB total pages
    cloudsql.googleapis.com/
    database/mysql/innodb_buffer_pool_pages_total

The number of dirty, free, and total pages in the InnoDB buffer pool. A dirty page in the InnoDB buffer pool is a page that's modified in the memory but isn't written back to the disk. A free page in InnoDB buffer pool is a page that doesn't contain any data and is unused.
InnoDB fsync calls

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/innodb_data_fsyncs

The number of InnoDB fsync operations.
InnoDB log fsync calls

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/innodb_os_log_fsyncs

The number of fsync operations performed on the InnoDB redo log files.
InnoDB pages read/written

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/innodb_pages_read


cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/innodb_pages_written
The number of InnoDB pages read and written.
MySQL table open cache

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/open_tables


cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/opened_table_count
open_tables is the number of tables currently open.
opened_table_count is the number of tables that the database has opened since the last sample.
If the value ofopened_table_count is consistently high, we recommend that youincrease the value oftable_open_cache.
MySQL table definition cache

cloudsql.googleapis.com/database/
mysql/open_table_definitions


cloudsql.googleapis.com/database/
mysql/opened_table_definitions_count
open_table_definitions is the number of table definitions that are currently open.opened_table_definitions_count is the number of times the database has openeda table definition since the last sample. If the value ofopened_table_definitions_count is consistently high, we recommend that you increase the value oftable_definition_cache.
InnoDB data dictionary memory usage

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/mysql/innodb/dictionary_memory

Memory usage for the InnoDB data dictionary cache. InnoDB has its own cache for storing information about database objects such as tables, columns, indexes, and foreign keys.table_definition_cache sets a soft limit on the number of tables in this cache. However, tables with foreign key relationships are kept in cache until the database shuts down or restarts. This cache can consume a significant amount of memory if your instance has many tables with foreign key relationships.
Disk storage by type
cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/disk/bytes_used_by_data_type
The breakdown of instance disk usage by data types, such asdata,binlog, andtmp_data. This metric helps you understand your storage costs. For more information about storage usage charges, seeStorage and networking pricing.

Point-in-time recovery (PITR) uses binary logs. Cloud SQL generates new logs regularly and these logs use storage space. Cloud SQL automatically deletes the binary logs and their associated automatic backups. This generally happens after the retention value set fortransactionLogRetentionDays is met.transactionLogRetentionDays is the number of days for which Cloud SQL retains the transaction logs. Its value ranges from1 to7.

To avoid unexpected storage issues while using PITR, we recommend that you enableautomatic storage increases.

Disk read/write ops

cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/disk/read_ops_count


cloudsql.googleapis.com/
database/disk/write_ops_count
read_ops_count indicates the delta count of disk read I/O operations. You can use this metric to understand whether your instance is correctly sized for your environment. If required, you can switch to a larger machine type to serve more requests from cache and reduce latency.

write_ops_count indicates the delta count of disk write I/O operations. Cloud SQL instances, barring replicas, write to a system table, approximately, every second.
Cloud Logging

logging.googleapis.com/
log_entry_count
Shows the total number of log entries for errors and warnings.

For more information, seeCloud SQL metrics.

Events timeline

The dashboard provides the details of the following events:

Event nameDescriptionOperation type
Instance restartRestarts the Cloud SQL instanceRESTART
Instance failoverInitiates a manual failover of a high availability (HA) primary instance to a standby instance, which becomes the primary instance.FAILOVER
Instance maintenanceIndicates that the instance is currently in maintenance. Maintenance typically causes the instance to be unavailable for 1 to 3 minutes.MAINTENANCE
Instance backupPerforms an instance backup.BACKUP_VOLUME
Instance updateUpdates the settings of a Cloud SQL instance.UPDATE
Promote replicaPromotes a Cloud SQL replica instance.PROMOTE_REPLICA
Start replicaStarts replication on a Cloud SQL read replica instance.START_REPLICA
Stop replicaStops replication on a Cloud SQL read replica instance.STOP_REPLICA
Recreate replicaRecreates resources for a Cloud SQL replica instance.RECREATE_REPLICA
Create replicaCreates a Cloud SQL replica instance.CREATE_REPLICA
Data importImports data into a Cloud SQL instance.IMPORT
Instance exportExports data from a Cloud SQL instance to a Cloud Storage bucket.EXPORT
Restore backupRestores a backup of a Cloud SQL instance. This operation might cause your instance to restart.RESTORE_VOLUME

What's next

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Last updated 2026-02-19 UTC.