What happens when I stop aks cluster and start? Will my pods remain in the same state? Do the node pool and nodes inside that stop? Do the services inside the cluster still runs and cost me if it is a load balancer?
Stopping cluster will lost all the pods and starting it again it will create a new pod with the same name but Ip address of pod will changes.
Pods are only scheduled once in their lifetime. Once a Pod is scheduled (assigned) to a Node, the Pod runs on that Node until it stops or is terminated.
Do the node pool and nodes inside that stop?Do the services inside the cluster still runs and cost me if it is a load balancer?
Yes It will Stop the nodes and Complete Node Pool as well.Service Inside the cluster will also stop and it will not cost as well.
Reference : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/start-stop-cluster?tabs=azure-cli