GCP – Leveraging AI for incident response: Personalized Service Health integrated with Gemini Cloud Assist

In the event of a cloud incident, everyone wants swift and clear communication from the cloud provider, and to be able to leverage that information effectively. Personalized Service Health in the Google Cloud console addresses this need with fast, transparent, relevant, and actionable communications about Google Cloud service disruptions, customized to your specific footprint. This helps you to quickly identify the source of the problem, helping you answer the question, “Is it Google or is it me?” You can then integrate this information into your incident response workflows to resolve the incident more efficiently.

We’re excited to announce that you can prompt Gemini Cloud Assist to pull real-time information about active incidents, powered by Personalized Service Health, providing you with streamlined incident management, including discovery, impact assessment, and recovery. By combining Gemini’s guidance with Personalized Service Health insights and up-to-the-minute information, you can assess the scope of impact and begin troubleshooting – all within a single, AI-driven Gemini Cloud Assist chat. Further, you  can initiate this sort of incident discovery from anywhere within the console, offering immediate access to relevant incidents without interrupting your workflow. You can also check for active incidents impacting your projects, gathering details on their scope and the latest updates directly sourced from Personalized Service Health.

Using Gemini Cloud Assist with Personalized Service Health

We designed Gemini Cloud Assist with a user-friendly layout and a well-organized information structure. Crucial details, including dynamic timelines, latest updates, symptoms, and workarounds sourced directly from Personalized Service Health, are now presented in the console, enabling conversational follow-ups. Gemini Cloud Assist highlights critical insights from Personalized Service Health, helping you refine your investigations and understand the impact of incidents.

To illustrate the power of this integration, the following demo showcases a typical incident response workflow leveraging the combined capabilities of Gemini and Personalized Service Health.

Incident discovery and triage
In the crucial first moments of an incident, Gemini Cloud Assist helps you answer “Is it Google or is it me?” Gemini Cloud Assist accesses data directly from Personalized Service Health, and provides feedback on which projects and at what locations are affected by a Google Cloud incident, speeding up the triage process.

To illustrate how you can start this process, try asking Gemini Cloud Assist questions like:

• Is my project impacted by a Google Cloud incident?

• Are there any incidents impacting Google Cloud at the moment?

Investigating and evaluating impact
Once you’ve identified a relevant Google Cloud incident, you can use Gemini Cloud Assist to delve deeper into the specifics and evaluate its impact on your environment. Furthermore, by asking follow-up questions, Gemini Cloud Assist can retrieve updates from Personalized Service Health about the incident as it evolves. You can then further investigate by asking Gemini to pinpoint exactly which of your apps or projects, and at what locations, might be affected by the reported incident.

Here are examples of prompts you might pose to Gemini Cloud Assist:

• Tell me more about the ongoing Incident ID [X] (Replace [X] with the Incident ID)

• Is [X] impacted? (Replace [X] with your specific location or Google Cloud product)

• What is the latest update on Incident ID [X]?

• Show me the details of Incident ID [X].

• Can you guide me through some troubleshooting steps for [impacted Google Cloud product]?

Mitigation and recovery
Finally, Gemini Cloud Assist can also act as an intelligent assistant during the recovery phase, providing you with actionable guidance. You can gain access to relevant logs and monitoring data for more efficient resolution. Additionally, Gemini Cloud Assist can help surface potential workarounds from Personalized Service Health and direct you to the tools and information you need to restore your projects or applications. Here are some sample prompts:

• What are the workarounds for the incident ID [X]? (Replace [X] with the Incident ID)

• Can you suggest a temporary solution to keep my application running?

• How can I find logs for this impacted project?

From these prompts, Gemini retrieves relevant information from Personalized Service Health to provide you with personalized insights into your Google Cloud environment’s health — both for ongoing events and incidents from up to one year in the past. This helps when investigating an incident to narrow down its impact, as well as assisting in recovery. 

Next steps

Looking ahead, we are excited to provide even deeper insights and more comprehensive incident management with Gemini Cloud Assist and Personalized Service Health, extending these AI-driven capabilities beyond a single project view. Ready to get started? 

• Learn more about Personalized Service Health, or reach out to your account team to enable it.

• Get started with Gemini Cloud Assist. Refine your prompts to ask about your specific regions or Google Cloud products, and experiment to discover how it can help you proactively manage incidents.