Google Tackles Persistent Software with Cloud Run Instances
Google has introduced Cloud Run instances, a new product now in preview. This offering gives developers a single dedicated Cloud Run runtime for workloads that need to stay active for extended periods.
The aim is to support long-lived, stateful applications such as AI agents that often run continuously for one user at a time. Unlike the normal Cloud Run model, which scales up and down in response to web traffic, Cloud Run instances are designed for persistent software with steady uptime.
Each instance runs as a singleton with no autoscaling, allowing developers to configure runtime behaviour to suit their workloads. Runtimes can stay active for up to seven days at a time and restart automatically under a default policy.
The service uses shared vCPU with burst budgets, which Google described as suitable for workloads that remain online for long periods but use significant compute resources only intermittently.