Release a pay-as-you-go cluster - PolarDB - Alibaba Cloud - PolarDB

You can manually release pay-as-you-go PolarDB clusters as needed.

Precautions

Subscription clusters cannot be manually released.
You can manually release the following types of clusters:
- Pay-as-you-go clusters with a Status of Running.
  
  Note
  If the Status of your pay-as-you-go cluster is Locked, it means your Alibaba Cloud account has an overdue payment. To unlock the cluster, add funds to your account. After the cluster is unlocked and running, you can manually release it. For more information, see Overdue payments.
- Serverless clusters with a Status of Stopped.
This feature releases the entire cluster, including all its nodes. To release a single read-only node, see Add or remove nodes.

Procedure

Log on to the PolarDB console. In the navigation pane on the left, click Clusters. Select the region where the cluster is located, and then find the destination cluster.
In the Actions column, choose More > Release.

In the Release Cluster dialog box, select a backup retention policy, and then click OK.

Retain backups	Description
Back up upon release and retain all backup sets	When the cluster is released, all backups of the current PolarDB cluster are retained.
Back up upon release and retain this backup set	When the cluster is released, a full backup is performed and only this backup set is retained.
Immediately delete all backup sets upon release	After the cluster is released, all backups and logs of the current PolarDB cluster are immediately deleted. Warning If you select this policy, the PolarDB cluster cannot be recovered after it is deleted.

Note

If you select the Back up upon release and retain all backup sets or Back up upon release and retain this backup set policy, the system performs a full backup when you release the PolarDB cluster to save all data before deletion.
After the cluster is released, if you select the Back up upon release and retain all backup sets or Back up upon release and retain this backup set policy:
- For Enterprise Edition clusters, level-1 backups are automatically converted to level-2 backups and stored in the cluster recycle bin. This incurs a small fee.
- For Standard Edition clusters, level-1 backups are stored in the cluster recycle bin. This incurs a small fee.
You can delete the backups of a released cluster at any time to save costs.

FAQ

Can I pause or stop a PolarDB cluster?

If your PolarDB cluster has defined specifications (the Billing Method is Subscription or Pay-As-You-Go), you cannot pause or stop the cluster.
If your PolarDB cluster is a Serverless cluster, you can configure the Serverless cluster's automatic start and stop feature. After this feature is enabled, the cluster is automatically paused if it has no active connections during the specified Detection Period for No-activity Suspension. While the cluster is paused, you are still charged for storage space on a pay-as-you-go basis. The cluster automatically resumes when a connection is established.

Why am I still being charged for backup storage after my cluster has been released?

If you choose to retain backup sets when you release a cluster, you will incur backup storage costs. You can delete these backup sets in the cluster recycle bin to save on backup costs. For more information, see Permanently delete a released cluster.

Why can't I release my cluster after I purchased it?

Before you release a cluster, check for any ongoing tasks, such as data migration. If such tasks are running, you must wait for them to complete or stop them before you can release the cluster.

References

Related API operations

API	Description
DescribeDBClusters	Queries a list of PolarDB clusters.
DeleteDBCluster	Releases a pay-as-you-go PolarDB cluster.