GCP - Deprecations
Google Cloud is a constantly evolving platform, with new services and features being introduced as older ones are phased out. Staying informed about these changes is crucial for smooth operations and future-proofing applications. Google maintains a formal deprecation policy, as detailed in its Terms of Service, typically providing at least a 12-month notice for services that have reached General Availability.
Most notably:
- Container Registry is replaced by Artifact Registry.
- MQL is deprecated, in favor of PromQL.
- Cloud Function is now Cloud Run functions. (yes, the f in functions is lowercase.)
- Anthos brand is retired. It evolved into other services like Google Distributed Cloud.
- Cloud Deployment Manager is replaced by Infrastructure Manager.
- Infrastructure Manager: based on Terraform.
- Cloud Deployment Manager: based on YAML config.
Here are some Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services and features that have been deprecated, along with their recommended replacements:
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September 2026: Reference Lists in Google Security Operations will be fully retired. This functionality is being replaced by enhanced data tables, and all existing reference lists will be migrated automatically. The creation of new reference lists will be disabled in October 2025 to encourage adoption of the new feature.
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December 31, 2025: Cloud Deployment Manager will reach end of support.
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August 25, 2025: Firebase Dynamic Links is scheduled to be shut down on this date. Developers are encouraged to use App Links, Google Play Instant, Universal Links, and App Clips to achieve similar functionality for creating seamless user journeys across apps and the web.
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August 25, 2025: older SDKs for Firebase Authentication features like email link sign-in, password reset, and email verification will be deprecated. Users must upgrade to the latest Firebase Authentication SDKs to continue using these features.
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July 22, 2025: The Incident Manager in Google Security Operations will be fully decommissioned. While support and maintenance will continue until this date, no new features will be released for it.
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July 22, 2025: Google Cloud customer support for MQL will end. Shortly after this date, you will no longer be able to create new dashboards and alerts using MQL directly in the Google Cloud console. Replaced by PromQL.
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June 1, 2025: Support for Python 3.7 in Google Security Operations will end. Users need to upgrade their Python versions to continue using integrations on the platform.
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April 30, 2025: The managed BigQuery data lake for Google Security Operations customers, except for those in the Enterprise Plus Tier, will be shut down. Other customers can use their own BigQuery instance to export telemetry data.
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October 13, 2024: As of this date, support for Python 2.7 in Google Security Operations has ended. Users are required to upgrade to a supported Python version.
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September 1, 2024: After this date, the Ingestion Alerting System within Google Security Operations will no longer send new alerts. Users are advised to use the Cloud Monitoring integration for more flexible alerting and workflow management.
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On or after March 31, 2024: The Windows forwarder executable for Google Security Operations was deprecated. Users should now utilize the Google Security Operations forwarder for Windows on Docker.
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August 16, 2023: On this date, Google IoT Core was shut down. Google has advised customers to migrate to solutions from its network of partners who specialize in IoT applications and services.
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On or after July 1, 2023: The
udm_eventstable in the Chronicle-managed BigQuery for Google Security Operations was replaced with a new table namedevents. -
The
projects.moveInstancemethod in Compute Engine has been deprecated. Google recommends users follow the current documentation for moving a VM instance between zones or regions instead. -
The third-party API feed for Symantec Event Export in Google Security Operations has been discontinued. Data ingestion can now be accomplished using a Cloud Storage bucket.