Scale to Zero - Disable and enable services in Azure Service Fabric

To increase resource utilization in a cluster, scale to zero feature can be used to free resources that are being held by services not currently in use. In this article, you learn how to disable and enable services in an Azure Service Fabric cluster. Disabling a service removes all of its replicas and instances while preserving the service definition. When you enable the service again, Service Fabric rebuilds the replicas without requiring a full re-creation.

Both stateful and stateless services are supported on Windows and Linux platforms.

Prerequisites

• A Service Fabric cluster running version 11.5 or later.

• The AllowDisableEnableService configuration flag set to true in the FailoverManager section:

  <Section Name="FailoverManager">
    <Parameter Name="AllowDisableEnableService" Value="true" />
  </Section>
  

Disable a service

When you disable a service, Service Fabric marks it as Disabling, schedules replica removal, and returns immediately. The service transitions to Disabled asynchronously after all replicas are removed. Poll the service status to confirm completion.

Disable-ServiceFabricService -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyService"

Disable-ServiceFabricService -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyService" -ForceDisable

var client = new FabricClient();
var description = new DisableServiceDescription(new Uri("fabric:/MyApp/MyService"))
{
    DisableServiceFlag = DisableServiceFlag.RemoveData
};

await client.ServiceManager.DisableServiceAsync(description);

var description = new DisableServiceDescription(new Uri("fabric:/MyApp/MyService"))
{
    DisableServiceFlag = DisableServiceFlag.RemoveData,
    ForceDisable = true
};

await client.ServiceManager.DisableServiceAsync(description);

POST /Services/{serviceName}/$/Disable

{
    "DisableServiceFlag": "RemoveData"
}

POST /Services/{serviceName}/$/Disable

{
    "DisableServiceFlag": "RemoveData",
    "ForceDisable": true
}

Enable a service

When you enable a previously disabled service, Service Fabric builds replicas and instances according to the service's current configuration (target replica set size, instance count, placement constraints, and so on).

Enable-ServiceFabricService -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyService"

var client = new FabricClient();
await client.ServiceManager.EnableServiceAsync(new Uri("fabric:/MyApp/MyService"));

POST /Services/{serviceName}/$/Enable

Create a service in the disabled state

You can register a service in the cluster without placing any replicas or instances. The service stays disabled until you explicitly enable it.

New-ServiceFabricService `
    -ApplicationName "fabric:/MyApp" `
    -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyService" `
    -ServiceTypeName "MyServiceType" `
    -Stateless `
    -InstanceCount 3 `
    -PartitionSchemeSingleton `
    -IsCreateAsDisabled

New-ServiceFabricService `
    -ApplicationName "fabric:/MyApp" `
    -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyStatefulService" `
    -ServiceTypeName "MyStatefulServiceType" `
    -Stateful `
    -HasPersistedState `
    -TargetReplicaSetSize 3 `
    -MinReplicaSetSize 2 `
    -PartitionSchemeSingleton `
    -IsCreateAsDisabled

var description = new StatelessServiceDescription
{
    ApplicationName = new Uri("fabric:/MyApp"),
    ServiceName = new Uri("fabric:/MyApp/MyService"),
    ServiceTypeName = "MyServiceType",
    PartitionSchemeDescription = new SingletonPartitionSchemeDescription(),
    InstanceCount = 3,
    IsCreateAsDisabled = true
};

var client = new FabricClient();
await client.ServiceManager.CreateServiceAsync(description);

When you omit the -IsCreateAsDisabled flag, the default value is false and Service Fabric places replicas immediately upon creation.

Check service status

Query the service to verify its current state.

Get-ServiceFabricService -ApplicationName "fabric:/MyApp" -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyService"

var client = new FabricClient();
var services = await client.QueryManager.GetServiceListAsync(
    new Uri("fabric:/MyApp"),
    new Uri("fabric:/MyApp/MyService"));

foreach (var svc in services)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Service: {svc.ServiceName}, Status: {svc.ServiceStatus}");
}

The ServiceStatus field returns one of the following values:

Delete a disabled service

You can delete a service while it's in the Disabled state. No extra steps are needed — the standard deletion flow applies.

Remove-ServiceFabricService -ServiceName "fabric:/MyApp/MyService" -Force

Understand upgrade behavior

Application upgrades

Application upgrades proceed regardless of whether services in the application are disabled:

• Disabled services stay disabled after the upgrade completes.
• You can disable or enable services at any point during an upgrade.
• Service descriptions and configurations are preserved. Only the replica count is zero while the service is disabled.

Fabric upgrades

Fabric (runtime) upgrades aren't blocked by disabled services. However, rolling back a fabric upgrade to a version that predates the disable/enable feature is rejected when disabled services exist in the cluster, because the rollback would cause inconsistent service states.

Error codes

The following table lists error codes specific to the disable/enable feature:

Configuration reference

Set the following values in the FailoverManager section of the cluster configuration:

Known limitations

• System services can't be disabled.
• In an unlikely event where FM experiences data loss, disabled services will be permanently lost and require re-creation. After recovery, these services may still appear in Service Fabric Explorer (SFX) but in an Unknown state. They are cleaned up on the next DeleteService or DisableService/EnableService API call, which returns OperationFailedServicePurged meaning that the service was purged and must be re-created.

Related content

• Service Fabric application upgrade
• Customize Service Fabric cluster settings