I have an AKS cluster with multiple user node pools. I have one node pool with 2 nodes. When I stop the node pool from the AKS portal using the Stop button, the 2 nodes don’t get scaled down. I still see them active when I call kubectl get nodes. Even in the portal it says Power state: Stopped (2/2 nodes ready).

Question is why aren’t the 2 nodes scaled down?

Other info:

1. I have verified using kubectl describe node that none of my containers are running on the node – only Azure containers are running under Non-termincated Pods:
2. The Scale method for the node pool is set to Manual and the Node count is set to 2. But my assumption is if I stop the node pool then these 2 should be scaled down to zero. Unless this is a feature.