Automated backups are a service provided by Cloud SQL where it stores at least seven backups of the instance at any point of time. At the time of writing this book, the charges were $0.17/GB/month for SSD and $0.08 for HDD. Network egress is free if backups are stored in the same region (which is advisable if the application is not mission critical). The size of backups varies depending on changes in the SQL instance between the window of the current backup and the previous one. This means only changes are stored in the subsequent backups.

Although the default time window for backups is four hours you can ask for backups anytime on-demand. The command for it is as follows:

gcloud sql backups create --async --instance <<YOUR INSTANCE>>  

For disabling automated backups of a certain instance:

gcloud sql instances patch [INSTANCE_NAME] --no...