Google Adds Detailed Reports to Compute Engine

End users looking for a little more reporting capabilities out of Google Compute Engine may find Google's (GOOG) latest announcement of interest. The company has released Google Compute Engine Usage Export, a tool designed make it easier for end users to export detailed reports about their usage data.

Additionally, the new tool also provides end users with the ability to gain more granular insight into their Google Compute Engine usage at a resource level. As Ken Sim, a Google product manager, noted in a blog post, "You can monitor exactly how long a virtual machine has been running or how much storage space a persistent disk uses on a daily basis."

Usage Export was designed along the lines of Billing Export; and like Billing Export, Usage Export allows customers to export a CSV file with the detailed usage data to a Google Cloud Storage bucket that the end users specify. The CSV file can then be accessed through the Google Cloud Storage API, CLI tool or the Google console.

The tool can be used to provide access to both daily reports that include usage data from the previous 24 hours, as well as monthly rollup reports that offer monthly usage data up to the most current day.

"This feature complements Billing Export to provide you with basic tools for monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing cost. You can link items between the two exports to easily identify charges for a particular resource," Sim wrote.

With the addition of Compute Engine Usage Export, Google continues to improve its Google Compute Engine offering, slowly building a following to compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (MSFT). Google may be a distant third behind AWS and Azure, but its leadership and managers are doing what they can to try to reduce the gap.