I've similarly started to rely on Google Cloud Shell as the only way to access our production database. That way, firewalls never have to allow external access,

I've similarly started to rely on Google Cloud Shell as the only way to access our production database. That way, firewalls never have to allow external access, and it's very clear whether I'm on production. Adding a Metabase instance with read-only credentials has helped this a lot - because executing one-off data queries is easy (and safe) now.