Check transfer charges before moving Google Cloud workloads

Why this is worth a look

You can target the wrong charge if you treat every network billing item as inter-region transfer. Internet data transfer out is billed per GiB delivered, but a description containing “network” does not establish the traffic path. Count savings only after the owner links a charge to traffic the move would change.

Run this read-only Standard SQL query in BigQuery after replacing the table path and YYYYMM. It covers one billing account's export and one invoice month. Cost and credit totals use the returned currency, not traffic units.

WITH shortlisted AS (
  SELECT
    sku.description AS sku_description,
    currency,
    SUM(cost) AS cost,
    SUM(IFNULL((SELECT SUM(c.amount) FROM UNNEST(credits) AS c), 0)) AS credits
  FROM `project.dataset.gcp_billing_export_v1_<BILLING_ACCOUNT_ID>`
  WHERE invoice.month = 'YYYYMM'
    AND LOWER(sku.description) LIKE '%network%'
  GROUP BY sku.description, currency
)
SELECT
  sku_description,
  currency,
  cost,
  credits,
  cost + credits AS cost_after_credits
FROM shortlisted
ORDER BY currency, cost_after_credits DESC;

How to confirm it

1. 01

   Choose the account and month

   Replace the table path and YYYYMM with one billing account's Standard export and one completed invoice month. Ask the billing-data colleague to confirm that the export covers that month before using the totals.

2. 02

   Review the largest charges

   Run the query or request its results. Start with the largest cost_after_credits values within each currency. Treat the network keyword as a shortlist, not a complete list of transfer charges; an empty result is not proof of zero transfer cost.

3. 03

   Confirm the billing item and unit

   Use the Google Cloud SKUs catalog, which lists billable items, to find candidates with its SKU name or SKU ID filters. Ask the billing owner to confirm each match. Verify the charging unit and applicable rate in the relevant product pricing documentation, such as VPC network pricing, rather than assuming a catalog unit field.

4. 04

   Tie the charge to the move

   Ask the workload owner to record the source and destination services, regions and zones for each priority item, plus the traffic quantity the proposed move would change. Leave unresolved items out of the savings forecast.

Primary sources