diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 5a6f082297e..9308c3515e5 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -599,6 +599,9 @@ Release 2.7.0 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-11480. Typo in hadoop-aws/index.md uses wrong scheme for
     test.fs.s3.name. (Ted Yu via aajisaka)
 
+    HADOOP-11629. WASB filesystem should not start BandwidthGaugeUpdater if
+    fs.azure.skip.metrics set to true. (Shanyu Zhao via cnauroth)
+
 Release 2.6.1 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-azure/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/azure/AzureNativeFileSystemStore.java b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-azure/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/azure/AzureNativeFileSystemStore.java
index 2412698490c..6bed8bb8304 100644
--- a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-azure/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/azure/AzureNativeFileSystemStore.java
+++ b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-azure/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/azure/AzureNativeFileSystemStore.java
@@ -387,9 +387,8 @@ public class AzureNativeFileSystemStore implements NativeFileSystemStore {
     if (null == instrumentation) {
       throw new IllegalArgumentException("Null instrumentation");
     }
-
     this.instrumentation = instrumentation;
-    this.bandwidthGaugeUpdater = new BandwidthGaugeUpdater(instrumentation);
+
     if (null == this.storageInteractionLayer) {
       this.storageInteractionLayer = new StorageInterfaceImpl();
     }
@@ -405,7 +404,13 @@ public class AzureNativeFileSystemStore implements NativeFileSystemStore {
     //
     if (null == conf) {
       throw new IllegalArgumentException(
-          "Cannot initialize WASB file system, URI is null");
+          "Cannot initialize WASB file system, conf is null");
+    }
+
+    if(!conf.getBoolean(
+        NativeAzureFileSystem.SKIP_AZURE_METRICS_PROPERTY_NAME, false)) {
+      //If not skip azure metrics, create bandwidthGaugeUpdater
+      this.bandwidthGaugeUpdater = new BandwidthGaugeUpdater(instrumentation);
     }
 
     // Incoming parameters validated. Capture the URI and the job configuration
@@ -1782,11 +1787,14 @@ public class AzureNativeFileSystemStore implements NativeFileSystemStore {
           selfThrottlingWriteFactor);
     }
 
-    ResponseReceivedMetricUpdater.hook(
-        operationContext,
-        instrumentation,
-        bandwidthGaugeUpdater);
-    
+    if(bandwidthGaugeUpdater != null) {
+      //bandwidthGaugeUpdater is null when we config to skip azure metrics
+      ResponseReceivedMetricUpdater.hook(
+         operationContext,
+         instrumentation,
+         bandwidthGaugeUpdater);
+    }
+
     // Bind operation context to receive send request callbacks on this operation.
     // If reads concurrent to OOB writes are allowed, the interception will reset
     // the conditional header on all Azure blob storage read requests.
@@ -2561,7 +2569,10 @@ public class AzureNativeFileSystemStore implements NativeFileSystemStore {
 
   @Override
   public void close() {
-    bandwidthGaugeUpdater.close();
+    if(bandwidthGaugeUpdater != null) {
+      bandwidthGaugeUpdater.close();
+      bandwidthGaugeUpdater = null;
+    }
   }
   
   // Finalizer to ensure complete shutdown