[__s]

I'd expect them to migrate mariadb to mysql in the backend eventually, offering a managed migration path for people who want to do it on their own time (ie not wait for an abrupt disruption at some random time in the next couple years)

I don't know anything about this, but I'm near this on the postgres side of azure. On that end I've seen a couple transparent migrations & have been working on less transparent ones too (such as pg11 eol). This handling of mariadb casts a bad light on the db services as a whole that doesn't match what I've seen previously