Cost of SQL Warehouse scaled to 0 clusters

[Malthe]

A SQL Warehouse can be scaled to a minimum of 0.

Presumably, there is still a cost to keeping the resource active, because we also have Auto-Stop which can completely stop the warehouse after a configurable amount of time.

This cost is not documented. If it was indeed totally free (i.e., no DBU consumption), what's an argument to ever stopping the warehouse? If not, what is the actual cost?

[MoJaMa · Accepted solution]

1. Just to clarify, minimum is 1, not 0. See https://docs.databricks.com/api/workspace/warehouses/create#min_num_clusters

2. How it works is based on concurrency. Assuming your max clusters is 2, and based on the concurrency, we don't need the 2nd cluster, we will scale down to 1, and then wait for the https://docs.databricks.com/api/workspace/warehouses/create#auto_stop_mins to be reached before shutting the WH down.

So assume at 9:00 AM your last query reached the WH, and it was at 1 cluster, and you're auto-stop was set to 10 mins, then at 9:10 AM the WH would be shut down. From a DBU perspective, you pay till 9:10 AM.

Actual cost you can find in the pricing page: https://www.databricks.com/product/pricing/databricks-sql

Or check in the UI where we show the DBU (you have to do the math using the page above and factor in your discounts to get the actual price)

 If the next query came in at 9:15 AM, the WH would start up again, and the cycle repeats.

~Mohan.