GCP News - 2026-08-13

Apigee X

Announcement

On August 13th, 2026, we began maintenance updates of Apigee instances configured for maintenance windows.

If you set a preferred window for maintenance for your instance, and your instance version is below 1-18-0-apigee-2, your instance will be updated to 1-18-0-apigee-2 within the next seven to 21 days. A notification containing the expected date of upgrade will be sent within the next two business days.

For more information on participating in scheduled maintenance windows, see Maintenance overview and Manage Apigee instance maintenance windows.

Announcement

On August 13th, 2026, we released an updated version of Apigee (1-18-0-apigee-3).

Fixed

Security

Backup and DR

Feature

You can now configure scheduled, application-consistent backups and point-in-time recovery (PITR) workflows for self-managed databases (including IBM Db2, SAP HANA, SAP ASE, SAP IQ, SAP MaxDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB) running on Compute Engine Linux instances.

This feature uses the bring-your-own-script guest-flush framework to quiesce the database before snapshot creation, ensuring transaction consistency and eliminating data corruption risks. Additionally, you can configure dedicated Persistent Disk backups for database archive logs to enable point-in-time recovery.

For more information, see Configure application-consistent backups.

BigQuery

Feature

BigQuery pipelines now support automated metadata enrichment, allowing you to define semantic metadata directly in SQLX configurations for synchronization with Knowledge Catalog. In addition, the Data Engineering Agent proactively generates this metadata based on your intent or context. For more information, see Metadata enrichment and data quality scorecard integration. This feature is in Preview.

Cloud SQL for MySQL

Feature

Cloud SQL for MySQL 9.7 is generally available (GA).

For more information about the differences between MySQL 9.7 and previous versions, review the MySQL 9.7 Release Notes.

By default, if you specify MySQL 9.7 as the version when you create a Cloud SQL instance (either primary or replica) using the gcloud CLI, the Google Cloud console, or the REST API, then the Cloud SQL edition is Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition.

This release introduces support for key MySQL 9.7 capabilities, including:

• Vector search: support for the community-standard vector storage format combined with advanced approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) vector indexing in Cloud SQL.
• Hypergraph optimizer: an alternative join-planning framework designed for complex, multi-table queries. You can enable the hypergraph optimizer using an optimizer switch.
• JSON Duality Views: a feature that bridges relational SQL and hierarchical JSON document models to interact with the same underlying data.
• Upgrade and migration paths: support for in-place major version upgrade from Cloud SQL for MySQL 8.4 and migrations from MySQL 8.4 using the Database Migration Service (DMS).

Flag updates for MySQL 9.7

Additionally, this release introduces several database flag changes.

For more information about MySQL database flags, see Configure database flags.

Cluster Toolkit

Feature

Cluster Toolkit v1.100.0 is available. This release adds the --gke-namespace flag to enable namespace-aware operations, enables sauth by default in the Slurm module, and removes topology labels from the nodeLabels resources in Kueue ResourceFlavor objects. For details, see the release announcement on GitHub.

Data Studio

Announcement

The following features are rolling out over the next week.

Feature

Fullscreen charts

You can view individual charts in fullscreen mode. Click the fullscreen button in the chart header to expand the chart. This feature is not available for scorecards and gauge charts.

Feature

Rotate components

You can rotate text boxes, images, and shapes in Data Studio. Report creators can rotate these components on a non-responsive canvas and can reset the rotation to 0 degrees.

Feature

Center labels on stacked bar charts

You can position labels in the center of stacked bar charts. If insufficient space is available to center the label within the bar, the label is displayed outside the bar.

For more information, see the Bar chart and column chart reference.

Feature

Search for settings

You can search for settings in the Setup and Style tabs of the properties panel.

Feature

Copy chart as image

You can copy a chart as a PNG image to your clipboard.

Feature

Bubble chart border color

You can modify the border color of bubbles in bubble charts.

Dataform

Feature

Dataform workflows and BigQuery pipelines now support automated metadata enrichment for BigQuery tables and views, allowing you to define semantic metadata directly in SQLX configurations for synchronization with the Knowledge Catalog. For more information, see Add metadata for Knowledge Catalog. This feature is in Preview.

Error Reporting

Announcement

Error Reporting can report stack traces collected from Rust applications using std::backtrace. To enable, set the RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable and make sure debug symbols are enabled.

For more information, see ReportedErrorEvent.

Gemini Enterprise

Feature

Gemini Enterprise: Create, upload, and share custom skills

Skills are reusable custom instructions that help the Gemini Enterprise assistant perform specific tasks. End users can create, upload, and share skills. To enable this feature, administrators must turn on the skills and skill-sharing settings in Feature Management. Administrators can also configure skill availability and approve skill-sharing requests.

This feature is generally available (GA). For more information, see the following:

• Learn how to create and manage skills as a Gemini Enterprise end user.
• Learn how to manage skills as a Gemini Enterprise administrator.

Feature

Gemini Enterprise: Use Gemini 3.7 Flash

Gemini 3.7 Flash is generally available (GA) in the global, us, and eu regions. To make Gemini 3.7 Flash available to users in the Gemini Enterprise app, administrators must turn on the Gemini 3.7 Flash feature toggle in the Google Cloud console.

For in-country regions where the model isn't supported, administrators can still enable the model by confirming a warning that traffic is routed to the global endpoint, which doesn't support regional data residency.

Gemini 3.7 Flash is also available in Agent Designer workflow agents. Updates take up to a day to appear in workflow agents.

For more information, see:

• Manage features on the web app
• Data residency for Gemini Enterprise Standard and Plus Editions and Gemini Notebook Enterprise

Announcement

Gemini Enterprise: Gemini 3.7 Flash availability in mobile app

Gemini 3.7 Flash is not available in the Gemini Enterprise mobile app. A new release note will be added when the Gemini 3.7 Flash rollout for the Gemini Enterprise mobile app is complete.

Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform

Feature

Gemini 3.7 Flash is generally available

Gemini 3.7 Flash is now generally available (GA) and available for production use. This model is our first model to enable agentic video processing enabled by default.

For more information on 3.7 Flash, see the model page.

Feature

Agent Runtime: ADK telemetry metrics

Agents deployed to Agent Runtime with Agent Development Kit (ADK) 2.6.0 or later can emit gen_ai application metrics that follow OpenTelemetry's generative AI semantic conventions. Set the GOOGLE_CLOUD_AGENT_ENGINE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY environment variable to export these metrics to Cloud Monitoring as user-defined metrics, alongside agent traces and logs.

For more information, see Set up monitoring.

Google SecOps

Announcement

Scheduled Maintenance

SOAR database and infrastructure maintenance is scheduled to take place during the standard maintenance window on Sunday, August 16. During this window, your system will experience a brief period of downtime. No customer action is required.

Google SecOps SOAR

Announcement

Scheduled Maintenance

SOAR database and infrastructure maintenance is scheduled to take place during the standard maintenance window on Sunday, August 16. During this window, your system will experience a brief period of downtime. No customer action is required.

Memorystore for Valkey

Feature

You can migrate workloads from self-managed Redis and Valkey instances running on Google Cloud to Memorystore for Valkey. This feature is Generally Available.

Security Command Center

Feature

AI Protection supports data residency in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for all Security Command Center service tiers.

For more information, see Planning for data residency.

Sensitive Data Protection

Feature

The ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, and OPENAI_API_KEY infoType detectors are available in all regions. For more information about all built-in infoTypes, see the InfoType detector reference.

VPC Service Controls

Feature

VPC Service Controls feature (Status: Preview): Support for optimizing service perimeters using the VPC Service Controls recommender is available.

The recommender detects architectural risks and perimeter misconfigurations, including the following:

• Critical resources at risk of exfiltration: Identifies active and sensitive services (such as BigQuery and Cloud Storage) operating outside service perimeters.

• Unconfigured VPC accessible services: Identifies perimeters that leave APIs unrestricted from within the security boundary.

• Misconfigured VPC accessible services: Identifies mismatches between allowed accessible APIs and restricted services inside a perimeter.

For more information, see Optimize perimeters with recommender.

Vertex AI Search

Feature

Agent Search: Gemini 3.5 Flash answer generation

You can generate answers with the Gemini 3.5 Flash model.

For more information, see Answer generation model versions and lifecycle and Gemini 3.5 Flash.