MySQL flexible server billing for backup beyond its free allowance
An Azure Database for MySQL flexible server whose backup storage exceeds the free allowance of 100% of provisioned storage, so the excess is billed per GB per month.
Why it happens
Azure includes backup storage equal to 100 percent of a flexible server's provisioned storage at no cost and bills roughly $0.095 per GB per month beyond it. Backup volume grows with transaction activity as well as with database size, and Microsoft states that heavy write activity increases it regardless of how large the database is, so a modest database on a long retention window can quietly bill for backup storage nobody chose. Geo-redundant servers are charged for twice their backup size against the same single allowance. This reports what is being billed today and names the lever, which is the retention window. It deliberately does not claim that lowering retention recovers the whole amount, because backup volume is a base backup plus transaction logs and the recoverable fraction cannot be derived from what this agent collects.
What the agent does about it
An Azure Database for MySQL flexible server whose backup storage exceeds the free allowance of 100% of provisioned storage, so the excess is billed per GB per month.
It will not fix this one
It reports this and takes no action. A check only earns the right to change something once the action behind it can re-read live state before it fires and knows the way back.
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