In the previous Azure post, we’ve shown how to create an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster via the Azure CLI. Today, we’ll focus on how to stop and start AKS cluster using the official way. What the official way means anyway, you could ask. Well, before now, in order to save some infrastructure money, you need to scale down the User Node Pools to 0, but at at the end of each month, you’ll still be charged for the system node pools which was running 24/7, unless you delete the AKS cluster. And, in the last couple of months, Azure came up with a feature that can stop the control plane (the system node pool) and the agent nodes as well.
Prerequisites
- Azure account
- Azure CLI
- Azure Kubernetes Cluster
Stop the AKS Cluster
Step 1. Stop the cluster:
az aks stop --resource-group rg-aks-test --name aksdevcoopstest
Step 2. Check the cluster status:
az aks show --resource-group rg-aks-test --name aksdevcoopstest
You should check the powerState value as a root element in the output JSON. powerState it’s also part of agentPoolProfiles as well:
"powerState": {
"code": "Running"
},
Start the AKS Cluster
Step 3. Start the cluster:
az aks start --resource-group rg-aks-test --name aksdevcoopstest
Step 4. Check the cluster status:
az aks show --resource-group rg-aks-test --name aksdevcoopstest
Command output:
"powerState": {
"code": "Running"
},
Cleanup
Step 5. Delete the Azure Kubernetes Cluster:
az aks delete --resource-group rg-aks-test --name aksdevcoopstest --yes --no-wait
Step 6. Delete the resource group:
az group delete --name rg-aks-test
Conclusion
This is an awesome way to save some money, especially if you running an AKS cluster in dev or staging/preprod environments. The next step should be automation (DevOps right?!), setting up a scheduled task that will start the cluster early in the morning as you are getting your first cup of coffee and stopping the cluster after working hours. I’ll leave this as a future post idea.
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