Use query insights to improve query performance
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MySQL | PostgreSQL | SQL Server

This page describes how to use the Query insights dashboard to detect and analyze performance problems with your queries.

Introduction

Query insights helps you detect, diagnose, and prevent query performance problems for Cloud SQL databases. It supports intuitive monitoring and provides diagnostic information that helps you go beyond detection to identify the root cause of performance problems.

Query insights helps you improve Cloud SQL query performance by guiding you through the following steps:

Query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition

If you're using Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, then you can access additional capabilities in query insights to perform advanced query performance diagnostics. In addition to the standard capabilities of the Query insights dashboard, query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition lets you do the following:

Capture longer query text up to 20 KB.
Capture query plans for all executed queries.
Sample up to 200 query plans per minute.
Maintain a longer 30-day retention of metrics.
Obtain index recommendations from index advisor.
Terminate a session or long-running transaction in active queries.

The following table compares functional requirements and capabilities of query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise edition with query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition.

Comparison area	Query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise edition	Query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition
Supported database versions	All versions of the following instances: SQL Server Web SQL Server Standard SQL Server Enterprise Query insights isn't supported on SQL Server Express edition instances	SQL Server Enterprise version 2019 or 2022
Supported machine types	Supported on all machine types	Not supported on instances that use a shared core machine type or on read replica instances
Supported regions	Cloud SQL regional locations	Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition regional locations
Metrics retention period	7 days	30 days
Query length limit maximum	4500 bytes	20 KB
Query plan sample maximum	Not available	200
Index advisor recommendations	Not available	Available
Terminate sessions or long-running transactions in active queries	Not available	Available

Enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition

To enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, select Enable Enterprise Plus features when you Enable query insights on your Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition instance.

Pricing

There's no additional cost for query insights on Cloud SQL Enterprise edition or Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition instances.

Storage requirements

Query insights stores metrics data on the instance and requires that you keep the automatic storage increases setting enabled. Applicable storage fees apply.

Before you begin

Before you use query insights, do the following.

Add required roles and permissions.
Enable the Cloud Trace API.
If you're using query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise edition or query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, then make sure that Enable automatic storage increases is enabled for the instance.

Required roles and permissions

To use query insights, you need to grant a predefined role, create a custom role, or provide a user account with the required Identity and Access Management permissions.

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access.

To get the permissions that you need to access historical query execution data in the Query insights dashboard, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on the project that hosts the Cloud SQL instance:

Database Insights Monitoring Viewer (roles/databaseinsights.monitoringViewer)
Cloud SQL Viewer (roles/cloudsql.viewer)

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

These predefined roles contain the permissions required to access historical query execution data in the Query insights dashboard. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to access historical query execution data in the Query insights dashboard:

databaseinsights.aggregatedStats.query
databaseinsights.timeSeries.query

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

For example, in Database Insights, you can ask your administrator to grant you the Database Insights Viewer (roles/databaseinsights.viewer) predefined role. Then, in Cloud SQL, you can ask your administrator to grant you one of the following predefined roles:

Cloud SQL Editor (roles/cloudsql.editor)
Cloud SQL Admin (roles/cloudsql.admin)

Enable the Trace API

To view query plans and their end-to-end views, your Google Cloud project must have the Trace API enabled. This setting lets your Google Cloud project receive trace data from authenticated sources at no additional cost. This data can help you detect and diagnose performance issues in your instance.

To confirm that the Trace API is enabled, follow these steps:

From the Google Cloud console, go to APIs and Services:
Go to APIs and Services
Click Enable APIs and Services.
In the search bar, enter Trace API.
If API enabled is displayed, then this API is enabled and there's nothing for you to do. Otherwise, click Enable.

Enable automatic storage increases

If you're using query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, then make sure that the instance setting to enable automatic storage increases remains enabled. By default, this option is enabled for Cloud SQL instances.

If you previously disabled this instance setting and want to enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, then re-enable automatic storage increases first. You can't turn off automatic storage increases and enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition.

Enable query insights

When you enable query insights, all other operations are temporarily suspended. These operations include health checks, logging, monitoring, and other instance operations.

Console

Enable query insights for an instance

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud SQL Instances page.
Go to Cloud SQL Instances
To open the Overview page of an instance, click the instance name.
On the Configuration tile, click Edit configuration.
In the Customize your instance section, expand Query insights.
Select the Enable Query insights checkbox.
Optional: Select additional features for your instance. Some features are available only for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition.

Feature	Description	Cloud SQL Enterprise edition	Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition
Enable Enterprise Plus features	Select this checkbox to enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition. Query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition lets you terminate sessions and long-running transactions in active queries, enables index advisor recommendations to help you speed up query processing, and increases metric data retention to 30 days. Index advisor recommendations are enabled automatically when you enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition. To disable index advisor recommendations, clear this checkbox.	Not available	Available Default: Disabled
Customize query lengths	Select this checkbox to customize the limit for the length of a query string. Higher query lengths are more useful for analytical queries, but they also require more memory. Any query string that goes above the specified limit becomes truncated in the display. Changing the query length limit requires you to restart the instance.	You can set the limit in bytes from `256` bytes to `4500` bytes. Default: `1024`.	You can specify a limit in bytes from `256` to `20480`. Default: `10240` bytes (10 KB).
Set the maximum sampling rate	Select this checkbox to set the maximum sampling rate. The sampling rate is the number of executed query plan samples that are captured per minute across all databases on the instance. Increasing the sampling rate is likely to give you more data points but might increase performance overhead.	You change this value to a number from `0` to `20`. Default: `5`.	You can increase the maximum to `200` to provide more data points. Default: `5`.

Click Save.

Enable query insights for multiple instances

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud SQL Instances page.
Go to Cloud SQL Instances
Click the More Actions menu on any row.
Select Enable Query insights.
In the dialog, select the Enable Query insights for multiple instances checkbox.
Click Enable.
In the subsequent dialog, select the instances for which you want to enable query insights.
Click Enable Query insights.
Note: If you enable query insights for multiple instances, then the configuration of the instances is based on the default configurations.

gcloud

To enable query insights for a Cloud SQL instance by using gcloud, run gcloud sql instances patch with the --insights-config-query-insights-enabled flag as follows after replacing INSTANCE_ID with the ID of the instance.

gcloudsqlinstancespatchINSTANCE_ID\--insights-config-query-insights-enabled

Also, use one or more of the following optional flags:

--insights-config-query-string-length
Sets the default query length limit. Higher query lengths are more useful for analytical queries, but they also require more memory. Changing the query length requires you to restart the instance. For Cloud SQL Enterprise edition, you can specify a value in bytes from 256 to 4500. The default query length is 1024 bytes. For Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, you can specify a limit in bytes from 256 to 20480. The default value is 10240 bytes (10 KB).
--query_plans_per_minute
By default, a maximum of 5 executed query plan samples are captured per minute across all databases on the instance. Increasing the sampling rate is likely to give you more data points but might add a performance overhead. To disable sampling, set this value to 0. For Cloud SQL Enterprise edition, you can change the value from 0 to 20. For Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, you can increase the maximum up to 200 to provide more data points.

Replace the following:

INSIGHTS_CONFIG_QUERY_STRING_LENGTH: The query string length to be stored, in bytes.
API_TIER_STRING: The custom instance configuration to use for the instance.
REGION: The region for the instance.

gcloudsqlinstancespatchINSTANCE_ID\ --insights-config-query-insights-enabled\ --insights-config-query-string-length=INSIGHTS_CONFIG_QUERY_STRING_LENGTH\ --query_plans_per_minute=QUERY_PLANS_PER_MINUTE\ --tier=API_TIER_STRING\ --region=REGION

REST v1

To enable query insights for a Cloud SQL instance by using the REST API, call the instances.patch method with insightsConfig settings.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

PROJECT_ID: the project ID
INSTANCE_ID: the instance ID

HTTP method and URL:

PATCH https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/instances/INSTANCE_ID

Request JSON body:

 { "settings" : { "insightsConfig" : { "queryInsightsEnabled" : true, "recordClientAddress" : true, "queryStringLength" : 1024, "queryPlansPerMinute" : 20, } } }

To send your request, expand one of these options:

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login , or by using Cloud Shell, which automatically logs you into the gcloud CLI . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X PATCH \
 -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
 -d @request.json \
 "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/instances/INSTANCE_ID"

PowerShell (Windows)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
 -Method PATCH `
 -Headers $headers `
 -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
 -InFile request.json `
 -Uri "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/instances/INSTANCE_ID" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

 { "kind": "sql#operation", "targetLink": "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/instances/INSTANCE_ID", "status": "PENDING", "user": "user@example.com", "insertTime": "2025-03-28T22:43:40.009Z", "operationType": "UPDATE", "name": "OPERATION_ID", "targetId": "INSTANCE_ID", "selfLink": "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID", "targetProject": "PROJECT_ID" }

Terraform

To use Terraform to enable query insights for a Cloud SQL instance, set the query_insights_enabled flag to true.

Also, you can use one or more of the following optional flags:

query_string_length: for Cloud SQL Enterprise edition, you can specify a value in bytes from 256 to 4500. The default query length is 1024 bytes. For Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, you can specify a limit in bytes from 256 to 20480. The default value is 10240 bytes (10 KB).
record_client_address: set the value to true if you want to record the client IP address. The default is false.
query_plans_per_minute: for Cloud SQL Enterprise edition, you can set the value from 0 to 20. The default is 5. For Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, you can increase the maximum up to 200 to provide more data points.

Here's an example:

To apply your Terraform configuration in a Google Cloud project, complete the steps in the following sections.

Prepare Cloud Shell

Launch Cloud Shell.
Set the default Google Cloud project where you want to apply your Terraform configurations.
You only need to run this command once per project, and you can run it in any directory.
```
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=PROJECT_ID
```
Environment variables are overridden if you set explicit values in the Terraform configuration file.

Prepare the directory

Each Terraform configuration file must have its own directory (also called a root module).

In Cloud Shell, create a directory and a new file within that directory. The filename must have the .tf extension—for example main.tf. In this tutorial, the file is referred to as main.tf.
```
mkdir DIRECTORY && cd DIRECTORY && touch main.tf
```
If you are following a tutorial, you can copy the sample code in each section or step.
Copy the sample code into the newly created main.tf.
Optionally, copy the code from GitHub. This is recommended when the Terraform snippet is part of an end-to-end solution.
Review and modify the sample parameters to apply to your environment.
Save your changes.
Initialize Terraform. You only need to do this once per directory.
```
terraform init
```
Optionally, to use the latest Google provider version, include the -upgrade option:
```
terraform init -upgrade
```

Apply the changes

Review the configuration and verify that the resources that Terraform is going to create or update match your expectations:
```
terraform plan
```
Make corrections to the configuration as necessary.
Apply the Terraform configuration by running the following command and entering yes at the prompt:
```
terraform apply
```
Wait until Terraform displays the "Apply complete!" message.
Open your Google Cloud project to view the results. In the Google Cloud console, navigate to your resources in the UI to make sure that Terraform has created or updated them.

Metrics are expected to be available in query insights within minutes of query completion.

View the Query insights dashboard

The Query insights dashboard shows the query load based on factors that you select. Query load is a measurement of the total work for all the queries in the instance in the selected time range. The dashboard provides a series of filters that help you view query load.

To open the Query insights dashboard, follow these steps:

To open the Overview page of an instance, click the instance name.
In the Cloud SQL navigation menu, click Query insights, or click Go to Query insights for more in-depth info on queries and performance on the Instance overview page.

The Query insights dashboard opens. Depending on whether you're using query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise edition or query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, the Query insights dashboard shows the following information about your instance:

Shows the Query Insights dashboard, with drop-down menus for databases. To the right of the drop-down menus, there's a filter for setting a time range.

Databases: Filters query load on a specific database or all databases.
Time range: Filters query load by time ranges, such as 1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, or a custom range.
Database load graph: Displays the query load graph, based on filtered data.
Queries and Databases: Filters query load by either a selected query or a selected database. See Filter the database load.

View the database load for all queries

Database query load is a measure of the work (in CPU seconds) that the executed queries in your selected database perform over time. Each running query is either using or waiting for CPU resources, IO resources, or lock resources. Database query load is the ratio of the amount of time taken by all the queries that are completed in a given time window to the wall-clock time.

The top-level query insights dashboard shows the Database load by execution time graph. Drop-down menus on the dashboard let you filter the graph for all databases or a specific database.

Shows all executed queries for a chosen database.

Colored lines in the graph show per database load by execution time. Review the graph and use the filtering options to explore these questions:

Is the query load high? Is the graph spiking or elevated over time? If you don't see a high load, then the problem isn't with your query.
How long has the load been high? Is it high only now or has it been high for a long time? Use the range selector to select various time periods to find out how long the problem has lasted. Zoom in to view a time window where query load spikes are observed. Zoom out to view up to one week of the timeline.
Which database is experiencing the load? Select different databases from the Databases drop-down menu to find the databases with the highest loads.

Filter the database load

You can filter the database load by queries. If you're using query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, then you can customize the database load chart to break down the displayed data using any of the following dimensions:

All queries
Databases

To customize the database load chart, select a dimension from the Database Load by execution time drop-down.

View the top contributors to database load

To view the top contributors to the database load, you can use the Top dimensions by database load table. The Top dimensions by database load table displays the top contributors for the time period and dimension that you select in the Database Load by execution time chart drop-down. You can modify the time period or dimension to view the top contributors for a different dimension or time period.

In the Top dimensions by data load table, you can select the following tabs.

Tab

Description

Queries

The table displays the top normalized queries by total execution time. For each query, the data shown in columns are listed as follows:

Avg execution time (ms): average time for the query to execute.
Total execution time (ms): the total execution time taken by the specific query.
Avg rows returned: the average number of rows fetched for the query.
Times called: the number of times the query was called by the application.

Databases

The table shows the list of top databases that contributed to the load during the chosen time period across all executed queries.

Avg time spent in database (ms): average time the queries spent in the specific database.
Total time spent in database (ms): the total execution time the queries spent in the specific database.

Filter by queries

The Top queries table provides an overview of the queries that cause the most query load. The table shows all the normalized queries for the time range and options selected on the Query insights dashboard. It sorts queries by the total execution time during the time range that you selected.

To sort the table, select a column heading.

The table shows the following properties:

Query: the normalized query string. By default, query insights shows only 1024 characters in the query string.
Database: the database against which the query was run.
Recommendations: the suggested recommendations, such as Create indexes, to improve query performance.
Avg execution time (ms): the average time for the query to execute.
Total execution time (ms): the total time for the query to execute.
Times called: the number of times the application called the query.
Avg rows returned: the average number of rows returned for the query.

Query insights stores and displays only normalized queries.

Examine operations in a sampled query plan

A query plan takes a sample of your query and breaks it down into individual operations. It explains and analyzes each operation in the query.

The Query plan samples graph shows all the query plans running at particular times and the amount of time each plan took to run. You can change the rate at which query plan samples are captured per minute. See Enable Query Insights.

Shows a query plan and a visualization of end-to-end tracing.

By default, the panel on the right shows the details for the sample query plan that takes the longest time, as visible on the Query plan samples graph. To see the details for another sample query plan, click the relevant circle on the graph. Expanded details show a model of all the operations in the query plan.

Each operation shows the rows returned and, if available, the cost of the operation. Use the full screen view or the End-to-end tab to see estimated execution statistics for each node (operation), as well as runtime execution statistics associated with the root node.

Shows a query plan using a visualization tree.

Try to narrow down the problem by looking into the following questions:

What's the resource consumption?
How does it relate to other queries?
Does consumption change over time?

Query details feature

Query details can provide further details about a specific query, including average execution time, the number of times called, and the average number of rows returned. It can also offer recommendations, such as indexes, to help improve query performance.

Query details also provide the following metrics:

Query plan samples: These samples help explain and analyze your query by providing a breakdown of the different operations in a sample of the query.
Query execution count over time: Shows the number of times the query has completed over a specified period. The chart helps you better understand when a query is usually executed and can help you estimate the impact of the query on instance performance.
Average rows returned over time: Shows the average number of rows returned by the query over time. This data can help you correlate slower than usual queries with an increased amount of data returned by those queries.
I/O statistics: Shows the input and output statistics for the query, including the following filters:
- Average logical reads
- Average physical reads
- Average logical writes
You can use I/O metrics to help you correlate slower than usual queries with more intensive I/O usage or changes in I/O patterns.
For example, if the number of logical reads increased, then that could be an indication that the query started reading more data than usual. If the number of physical reads increased, then that could indicate that Cloud SQL started reading more data from disk rather than from the buffer cache. For example, perhaps there wasn't enough memory to cache all data or the instance started reading too much data. If the number of logical writes increased, then that could indicate that the query started writing more data to the data disk.
This is one example of how this metric could help measure the impact of the query on instance I/O.
Memory statistics: Shows the memory usage statistics for the query, including the following filters:
- Average ideal memory
- Average reserved memory
- Average used memory
This metric can help you detect changes in memory consumption related to the query, including the following examples:
- Use this metric to detect when Cloud SQL mispredicted the amount of memory required for executing the query and might have reserved more memory than used by the query.
- Use this metric to detect when Cloud SQL couldn't allocate enough memory and reserved a smaller memory grant. When this happens, Cloud SQL uses the tempdb database, which is slower than using memory.
- Use the metric together with the number of query executions to measure impact of the query on memory consumption of the instance.
- Use the metric when you see high memory usage or memory pressure.
CPU and execution time statistics: Shows a combined view of CPU time and execution time statistics for the query. You can use the CPU time metric to investigate high CPU usage on the instance, including the following examples:
- You can use a combination of CPU time and execution count metrics to measure the impact of the query on total CPU consumption in the instance.
- You can use a combination of CPU time, execution time, and parallelism metrics to measure the percentage of time the query was waiting for resources.
- You can use the execution time metric to detect when a query took more time to execute than usual.
Additional query statistics: Shows additional statistics related to the query, including the following filters:
- Common language runtime (CLR) statistics
- Columnstore statistics
- Memory spills
- Parallelism statistics

Disable query insights

Console

To disable query insights for a Cloud SQL instance by using the Google Cloud console, follow these steps:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud SQL Instances page.
Go to Cloud SQL Instances
To open the Overview page of an instance, click the instance name.
On the Configuration tile, click Edit configuration.
In the Configuration options section, expand Query insights.
Clear the Enable Query insights checkbox.
Click Save.

gcloud

To disable query insights for a Cloud SQL instance by using gcloud, run gcloud sql instances patch with the --no-insights-config-query-insights-enabled flag as follows, after replacing INSTANCE_ID with the ID of the instance.

gcloudsqlinstancespatchINSTANCE_ID\--no-insights-config-query-insights-enabled

REST

To disable query insights for a Cloud SQL instance by using the REST API, call the instances.patch method with queryInsightsEnabled set to false as follows.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

project-id: The project ID.
instance-id: The instance ID.

HTTP method and URL:

PATCH https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/instances/instance-id

Request JSON body:

 { "settings" : { "insightsConfig" : { "queryInsightsEnabled" : false } } }

To send your request, expand one of these options:

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X PATCH \
 -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
 -d @request.json \
 "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/instances/instance-id"

PowerShell (Windows)

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
 -Method PATCH `
 -Headers $headers `
 -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
 -InFile request.json `
 -Uri "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/instances/instance-id" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

 { "kind": "sql#operation", "targetLink": "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/instances/instance-id", "status": "PENDING", "user": "user@example.com", "insertTime": "2021-01-28T22:43:40.009Z", "operationType": "UPDATE", "name": "operation-id", "targetId": "instance-id", "selfLink": "https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/operations/operation-id", "targetProject": "project-id" }

Disable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition

To disable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition, do the following:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Cloud SQL Instances page.
Go to Cloud SQL Instances
To open the Overview page of an instance, click the instance name.
Click Edit.
In the Customize your instance section, expand Query insights.
Clear the Enable Enterprise Plus features checkbox.
Click Save.

Use query insights to improve query performance Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.

Introduction

Query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition

Enable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition

Pricing

Storage requirements

Before you begin

Required roles and permissions

Required permissions

Enable the Trace API

Enable automatic storage increases

Enable query insights

Console

Enable query insights for an instance

Enable query insights for multiple instances

gcloud

REST v1

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

PowerShell (Windows)

Terraform

Prepare Cloud Shell

Prepare the directory

Apply the changes

View the Query insights dashboard

View the database load for all queries

Filter the database load

View the top contributors to database load

Filter by queries

Examine operations in a sampled query plan

Query details feature

Disable query insights

Console

gcloud

REST

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

PowerShell (Windows)

Disable query insights for Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition

What's next

Use query insights to improve query performance
Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.