# Azure Database for MariaDB

> Azure Database for MariaDB is a retired service whose servers still bill continuously for provisioned compute, with no stop or start support. ZopNight discovers surviving servers via Resource Graph, checks 60 days of Azure Monitor metrics for signs of live connections, and surfaces each one to drive migration or decommissioning.

Source: https://zop.dev/integrations/azure/mariadb
Updated: 2026-08-19

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Azure Database for MariaDB is the retired managed MariaDB service, billed continuously for provisioned compute. Instances still running are typically forgotten migration leftovers.

## Retired from the catalog, not from the invoice

Service retirement ends new deployments and future investment; it does not end the meter. A MariaDB server that survived the retirement wave keeps billing for its provisioned compute every hour and for its storage on top, exactly as it did when the service was current. The service never supported stop or start, so there has never been a way to idle one, and now there is also no roadmap that will change that. Every surviving server has exactly two futures: migration or deletion, and both are cheaper than another year of standing still.

## Confirming abandonment before deleting anything

ZopNight discovers MariaDB servers via Azure Resource Graph, Cost Management billing attributes their spend, and Azure Monitor metrics over a 60-day lookback reveal whether each server is still in use. That last signal is the decisive one: a flat connection and query profile across two full months separates a genuinely abandoned leftover from a quiet-but-load-bearing dependency some legacy job still reaches for monthly. The type is surfaced mainly to drive decommissioning or migration. There is nothing to schedule and no tier worth rightsizing on a dead-end service.

## The specific ways these servers get forgotten

Almost every surviving server tells one of three stories: a migration to Azure Database for MySQL that moved the application but never deleted the source; a proof of concept from the era when the service was current, still billing under a subscription nobody audits; or a dependency of a system that was itself retired, leaving the database running for zero callers.

## Tracking down MariaDB servers in the portal

Azure portal → Azure Database for MariaDB servers lists any that remain in the subscription. Each server's Metrics blade shows active connections, the single chart that usually settles whether the server can be deleted this week or needs a migration plan first.