Note: Google Cloud offers a 30-day introductory trial forStorage Intelligence. You can enable the trial to gain insights intoyour Cloud Storage usage and take actions. For more information aboutthe trial, see30-day introductory trial forStorage Intelligence.

This document describes Storage Intelligence, a Cloud Storagecapability that simplifies data management at scale.Storage Intelligence offers a unified platform for data exploration,cost optimization, security enforcement, and governance implementation.Storage Intelligence provides insights into your data throughdatastorage insights with Gemini Cloud Assist.Storage Insightsdatasets further enhance your analytical capabilities. Based onyour analysis, you can take actions, such asrelocating buckets andperforming large-scalebatch operations.

To learn how to configure Storage Intelligence, seeConfigure andmanage Storage Intelligence.

Benefits of Storage Intelligence

Storage Intelligence offers the following benefits:

• Simplifies storage management tasks by providing a single platform tomanage, analyze, and optimize Cloud Storage resources.
• Enhances data exploration by providing a centralized platform to search,browse, and analyze data across Cloud Storage locations.
• Helps you analyze your Cloud Storage usage to identify cost savingareas like unused resources, cheaper storage class options, and regionalbucket activity information.
• Provides prebuilt tools and functionalities that minimize development timeand the potential for errors. This eliminates the need for custom managementsolutions.

Key features

Storage Intelligence offers the following types of features:

• Analysis features to understand your data
• Action features to manage your data

Analysis features

Storage Intelligence provides the following analysis features that helpyou understand your data:

• Data storage insights with Gemini assistance:Use AI-powered assistance through Gemini to help you betterunderstand your data storage landscape. When you use Storage Insightsdatasets, you can ask Gemini prompts about your bucket andobject metadata and usage, such as "5 largest buckets without Autoclassenabled" and "Objects in Standard storage class smaller than 50 MB".For more information, seeAnalyze your stored data with Gemini Cloud Assist.

• Storage Insights datasets: Create datasets that provide insights intoyour Cloud Storage environment. Storage Insights datasets helps youwith data exploration, cost optimization, security enforcement, andgovernance implementation. To use it, you select the scope of your data bychoosing the project, folder, or organization that contains the buckets andobjects you want to manage. Storage Insights then creates a queryablemetadata and activity data index of all included buckets and objects. The index is madeavailable to you as aBigQuery linked dataset.Storage Insights datasets is an exclusive feature only available throughthe Storage Intelligence subscription. For more information aboutStorage Insights datasets, seedatasets.

• Inventory reports: Generate per-bucket inventoryreports to gain detailed insights into its objects. Theinventory reports feature is included as part of theStorage Intelligence subscription which includes anyobject scan fees. You can also use inventory reports without a subscriptionto Storage Intelligence. For more information aboutinventory reports, seeinventory reports.

Action features

Storage Intelligence offers the following action features to manageyour data effectively:

• Bucket relocation:Bucket relocation facilitates serverless migration ofCloud Storage buckets across geographic locations with minimaldowntime. Using bucket relocation, you can relocatebuckets while preserving the bucket and object metadata, including bucketnames and storage classes. Bucket relocation minimizesapplication downtime and reduces operational effort. Withbucket relocation, you can architect theCloud Storage workload to meet performance and cost requirements.Bucket relocation is an exclusive feature only availablethrough the Storage Intelligence subscription. For moreinformation about bucket relocation, seebucket relocation.

• Storage batch operations: Perform operations at scale across billionsof Cloud Storage objects. You can automate large-scale objectoperations, eliminating the need for custom script development andmaintenance. Storage batch operations is an exclusive feature onlyavailable through the Storage Intelligence subscription. For moreinformation, seestorage batch operations.

Configuration options

To use Storage Intelligence, you'll need to configure the following settings:

1. Resource
2. Bucket filters
3. Edition configuration

Resource

You can configure Storage Intelligence at different levels of yourGoogle Cloud resource hierarchy. This provides flexibility incontrolling which resources Storage Intelligence manages. ConfiguringStorage Intelligence for a resource automatically configures it for allbuckets within that resource, and consequently, for all objects within thosebuckets. The following sections describe the resources you can configureStorage Intelligence on. For information about how to configureStorage Intelligence for a resource, seeConfigureStorage Intelligence.

Organization

When you configure Storage Intelligence on anorganization, allcurrent and new folders and projects within that organization inherit theorganization's configuration. If you have the appropriate permissions, you canexclude folders or projects from inheriting the organization's configuration.

Folder

Configuring Storage Intelligence for afolder is useful forprojects that are grouped within folders. When you configureStorage Intelligence on a folder, all current and new projects withinthat folder inherit the folder's configuration. If you have the appropriatepermissions, you can exclude projects from inheriting the folder'sconfiguration.

Project

Configuring Storage Intelligence on aproject is suitable forworkloads, departments, or teams that are organized by project.

Bucket filters

You can control which Cloud Storage bucketsStorage Intelligence manages. You can include or exclude buckets basedon theirlocation orname using regular expressions. This granularcontrol helps you limit Storage Intelligence features to only therequired buckets. For information about how to apply bucket filters, seeConfigure Storage Intelligence.

Filter by location

Filtering by location lets you choose the Google Cloud locations toinclude or exclude from Storage Intelligence. Including specificlocations focuses your analysis and can reduce processing time. Excludinglocations lets you omit data that's regulated or irrelevant to your analysis.This targeted approach streamlines analysis and helpsStorage Intelligence deliver the most relevant and useful insights.

Filter buckets using regular expressions

Filtering by name in Storage Intelligence enables granular control overthe scope of analysis by including or excluding buckets using regularexpressions.

Edition configuration

The edition configuration determines which Storage Intelligencefeatures are active for a resource. Each resource (organization,folder, or project) has one of the following edition configurations:

• INHERIT: Inherit the configuration of the parent resource.
• STANDARD: Configure theSTANDARD edition ofStorage Intelligence. TheSTANDARD edition includes allStorage Intelligence features and is the default edition when youconfigure Storage Intelligence for a resource.
• DISABLED: Disable Storage Intelligence for the specifiedresource. Child resources inherit the disabled state unless you explicitlyset them toSTANDARD orINHERIT.
• TRIAL: Configure the30-day introductory trial for Storage Intelligence.

The following diagram shows an example of edition configurations across differentlevels of the resource hierarchy:

The following table shows how to use edition configurations to configureStorage Intelligence across your Google Cloud resources. When youconfigure Storage Intelligence on an organization, the projects andfolders within the organization inherit the Storage Intelligencesetting. However, recognizing that different teams or departments might haveunique requirements, you can also create exceptions and fine-tune theseconfigurations at lower levels for specific folders and projects.

Resource	Edition configuration	Storage Intelligence status	Description
Organization A	STANDARD	Enabled	STANDARD means that Storage Intelligence is enabled for the whole organization. As a result, by default, all projects and folders within theorganization A inherit Storage Intelligence.
Folder C	DISABLED	Disabled	To disable Storage Intelligence forfolder C, you can update the edition configuration toDISABLED.
Project E	DISABLED	Disabled	To disable Storage Intelligence forproject E, you can update the edition configuration toDISABLED.

Pricing

Charges for Storage Intelligence are based on the capabilities youconfigure. For details, see theStorage Intelligence pricing page.

What's next

• Configure and manage Storage Intelligence.
• Learn about:
  • Storage Insights datasets
  • Inventory reports
  • Bucket relocation