GCP Release Notes: March 02, 2026

AI Hypercomputer

Feature

Generally available: You can apply compact placement policies to standalone Flex-start VMs. These policies let you colocate your standalone Flex-start VMs in adjacent blocks or in the same block. Applying a compact placement policy gives you more control over VM placement and helps minimize network latency for AI/ML workloads. For more information, see Use Flex-start.

App Engine standard environment Java

Feature

Support for migrating from the legacy Mail API to an SMTP-based email service, such as SendGrid, Mailgun, or Mailjet is in General Availability.

App Engine standard environment Python

Feature

Support for migrating from the legacy Mail API to an SMTP-based email service, such as SendGrid, Mailgun, or Mailjet is in General Availability.

Cloud Key Management Service

Feature

Cloud KMS deletion of keys and key versions is generally available. Keys and key versions must meet deletion criteria before they can be deleted. Names of deleted keys can’t be reused.

For more information, including deletion criteria, see Delete Cloud KMS resources.

Cloud Monitoring

Feature

The SQL queries issued by Observability Analytics can now use a system-defined variable which resolves to the project ID. If a dashboard template uses the project ID variable, then you don’t need to update the SQL query after installing the template.

For more information, see the following documents:

• Google Cloud console: Charts with SQL queries
• API: Charts with SQL queries

Compute Engine

Feature

Generally available: You can apply compact placement policies to standalone Flex-start VMs. These policies let you colocate your standalone Flex-start VMs as close to each other as possible. Applying a compact placement policy minimizes network hops and improves the performance of latency-sensitive workloads. For more information, see About compact placement policies and About Flex-start VMs.

Google SecOps

Deprecated

Chronicle.soarAnalyst, chronicle.soarViewer, chronicle.soarEngineer roles in Cloud IAM are being deprecated and will be fully removed in six months. Although these roles were accessible and can historically be assigned to users in Cloud IAM, they were non-operational. SOAR roles were managed through Permission Groups and with its migration to Cloud IAM as part of the SOAR Migration to Google Cloud, the preceding roles are being deprecated.

To maintain seamless access and adhere to the principle of least privilege, transition your SOAR users to the following options:

• Automatically convert your SOAR Permission Groups to custom roles in IAM through self-service migration.
• Pre-defined roles: Utilize the enhanced Google SecOps pre-defined roles now available in Cloud IAM.
• Custom Roles: Create tailored roles with specific permissions to meet your organization’s unique security requirements.

Google SecOps SIEM

Deprecated

Chronicle.soarAnalyst, chronicle.soarViewer, chronicle.soarEngineer roles in Cloud IAM are being deprecated and will be fully removed in six months. Although these roles were accessible and can historically be assigned to users in Cloud IAM, they were non-operational. SOAR roles were managed through Permission Groups and with its migration to Cloud IAM as part of the SOAR Migration to Google Cloud, the preceding roles are being deprecated.

To maintain seamless access and adhere to the principle of least privilege, transition your SOAR users to the following options:

• Automatically convert your SOAR Permission Groups to custom roles in IAM through self-service migration.
• Pre-defined roles: Utilize the enhanced Google SecOps pre-defined roles now available in Cloud IAM.
• Custom Roles: Create tailored roles with specific permissions to meet your organization’s unique security requirements.

Looker

Feature

You can now manage backups for Looker (Google Cloud core) instances in the Google Cloud console. From the new Backups tab on the instance details page, you can create manual backups, and you can view, restore, or delete both automatic and manual backups. Previously, these operations were only available through the gcloud command-line tool.

NetApp Volumes

Feature

Google Cloud NetApp Volumes supports Producer VPC spokes with Network Connectivity Center, a generally available feature. For more information, see Connect additional networks with NCC.

Source: Google Cloud Platform