diff --git a/cluster/addons/fluentd-gcp/fluentd-gcp-configmap.yaml b/cluster/addons/fluentd-gcp/fluentd-gcp-configmap.yaml
index fc6537df1bc..39ee5ee767e 100644
--- a/cluster/addons/fluentd-gcp/fluentd-gcp-configmap.yaml
+++ b/cluster/addons/fluentd-gcp/fluentd-gcp-configmap.yaml
@@ -301,7 +301,42 @@ data:
@type prometheus_monitor
+
+ # This source is used to acquire approximate process start timestamp,
+ # which purpose is explained before the corresponding output plugin.
+
+ @type exec
+ command /bin/sh -c 'date +%s'
+ tag process_start
+ time_format %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
+ keys process_start_timestamp
+
+
+ # This filter is used to convert process start timestamp to integer
+ # value for correct ingestion in the prometheus output plugin.
+
+ @type record_transformer
+ enable_ruby true
+ auto_typecast true
+
+ process_start_timestamp ${record["process_start_timestamp"].to_i}
+
+
output.conf: |-
+ # This match is placed before the all-matching output to provide metric
+ # exporter with a process start timestamp for correct exporting of
+ # cumulative metrics to Stackdriver.
+
+ @type prometheus
+
+
+ type gauge
+ name process_start_time_seconds
+ desc Timestamp of the process start in seconds
+ key process_start_timestamp
+
+
+
# We use 2 output stanzas - one to handle the container logs and one to handle
# the node daemon logs, the latter of which explicitly sends its logs to the
# compute.googleapis.com service rather than container.googleapis.com to keep