Google Cloud Platform connector

To collect data by using the GCP connector, do the following tasks:

You must configure the connector to connect to Google Cloud Platform for collecting the cost data of GCP resources.

To configure the connector:

1. In the BMC Helix Cloud Cost dashboard, navigate to Connectors > Add a Connector > and select GCP Cloud Connector from the cloud based connectors.

2. On the Configure Connector page, configure the following properties:

   Property	Description
   Connector name	A unique name for the connector.
   Select the type of data that you want to collect	Security & Compliance: Collect resource usage data to evaluate it for compliance and security. This option is available only if you are licensed to use  BMC Helix Cloud Security . Billing information: Collect billing information to manage and optimize cost Note: Collection of cost data is supported only by exporting the GCP billing data to a CSV file.
   Client email	Enter the client email.
   Private key	Enter the private key. Private key in the JSON file: "private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nMIIEvgIBADANBgkqhkiG........p/ZkxmI5fg\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n" Input required in BMC Helix Cloud Cost: -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nMIIEvgIBADANBgkqhkiG........p/ZkxmI5fg\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n
   Billing report bucket name	Enter the name of the Google Cloud Storage bucket that contains the billing reports of your project.
   Billing report prefix	Enter a prefix to be used for the billing reports.

3. Collection mode: By default, the data collection cycle is set to On Demand collection. You can select an appropriate unit of time (days, minutes, hours) to schedule the data collection frequency along with event driven collection cycle where the collection is triggered when an event is identified in the selected account.

4. On the Select Policies page, select the policies that you want to import from the policy library. This option is available only if you are licensed to use BMC Helix Cloud Security. For more information, see Managing policies.

5. Click Continue. A confirmation message about the request for data collection processing is displayed.
   The Manage Connectors page shows the details of the newly configured GCP Cloud Connector.

Verify that the connector ran successfully and check whether GCP data is refreshed on the Dashboard.

To verify whether the connector ran successfully:

1. On the Manage Connectors page, the state of the newly configured connector is updated to Running.
   When you run the connector for the first time, the connector recovers data for the past 6 months. The data collection begins immediately but depending on the number of resources in your environment the data is displayed after some time in BMC Helix Cloud Cost.

1. On the BMC Helix Cloud Cost dashboard, the GCP connector tab is displayed.
2. Select the GCP tab from the Dashboard.
3. In the Summary tab, verify that the total cost, historical cost, and total resources are displayed. Currently, the GCP connector does not support generation of recommendations. Cost details at resource level are available only for the Compute Engine service. Cost details for all other services are calculated at individual service level. If multiple resources possess the same Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), cost of all such resources is aggregated. 
4. Resource pool information is not available by default. You must create a resource pool to view the resource pool details like name, resource count, budget, actual cost, and the projected cost. To create a resource pool, click Resource Pools.
5. In the Accounts tab, verify that the account details like name, actual cost, change in cost (in US dollars and percent), percent total cost, and number of resources are displayed for the account that is configured for this connector.
6. In the Services tab, verify that the service details like name, actual cost, change in cost (in US dollars and percent), percent total cost, and number of resources are displayed.
7. In the Explore Bill tab, verify that the resource name, actual cost, resource type, region, account name, and the service name are displayed.