How do I start & stop my AKS cluster?

Question

I have created an AKS cluster with 2 Node pools (Linux + windows) for dev/test purpose only. However, I'd like to save some costs when the cluster is not getting used. Is there any way the cluster can be turned on/off like a VM?
I found the below document. It works fine when stopping the cluster but starting it, the pods never get to the ready state.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/start-stop-cluster
Is there any other way I can achieve this? or save some costs?

Sam Cogan · Answer

The stop/start feature for AKS is in preview currently, and has seen some issues. Once this is GA and working without issue then this will be the best way to do this.
In the short term. Either de-allocating the scale set, or scaling to 0 is the best option.

Simon · Answer

You should be able to simply scale down the Virtual Machine Scale Set that run the specific pool (linux or windows) to 0. Make sure to drain the node (kubectl drain <node name>) prior to scaling the vmss down. Another option is to simply deallocate the the running machine(s) in the vmss. That way you only pay for the storage and not for the compute resources.

Answered by Simon on December 8, 2020

How do I start & stop my AKS cluster?

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