At this time, we’re asserting that your MySQL 5.7 and PostgreSQL 11 database cases working on Amazon Aurora and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) can be routinely enrolled into Amazon RDS Prolonged Assist beginning on February 29, 2024.

This may assist keep away from unplanned downtime and compatibility points that may come up with routinely upgrading to a brand new main model. This offers you with extra management over whenever you need to improve the main model of your database.

This computerized enrollment could imply that you’ll expertise larger costs when RDS Prolonged Assist begins. You may keep away from these costs by upgrading your database to a more moderen DB model earlier than the beginning of RDS Prolonged Assist.

What’s Amazon RDS Prolonged Assist?
In September 2023, we introduced Amazon RDS Prolonged Assist, which lets you proceed working your database on a significant engine model previous its RDS finish of ordinary help date on Amazon Aurora or Amazon RDS at a further price.

Till neighborhood finish of life (EoL), the MySQL and PostgreSQL open supply communities handle frequent vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) identification, patch era, and bug fixes for the respective engines. The communities launch a brand new minor model each quarter containing these safety patches and bug fixes till the database main model reaches neighborhood finish of life. After the neighborhood finish of life date, CVE patches or bug fixes are now not obtainable and the neighborhood considers these engines unsupported. For instance, MySQL 5.7 and PostgreSQL 11 are now not supported by the communities as of October and November 2023 respectively. We’re grateful to the communities for his or her continued help of those main variations and a clear course of and timeline for transitioning to the latest main model.

With RDS Prolonged Assist, Amazon Aurora and RDS takes on engineering the crucial CVE patches and bug fixes for as much as three years past a significant model’s neighborhood EoL. For these 3 years, Amazon Aurora and RDS will work to determine CVEs and bugs within the engine, generate patches and launch them to you as shortly as potential. Below RDS Prolonged Assist, we are going to proceed to supply help, such that the open supply neighborhood’s finish of help for an engine’s main model doesn’t depart your purposes uncovered to crucial safety vulnerabilities or unresolved bugs.

You would possibly surprise why we’re charging for RDS Prolonged Assist reasonably than offering it as a part of the RDS service. It’s as a result of the engineering work for sustaining safety and performance of neighborhood EoL engines requires AWS to take a position developer assets for crucial CVE patches and bug fixes. Because of this RDS Prolonged Assist is simply charging clients who want the extra flexibility to remain on a model previous neighborhood EoL.

RDS Prolonged Assist could also be helpful that will help you meet your online business necessities in your purposes in case you have explicit dependencies on a particular MySQL or PostgreSQL main model, resembling compatibility with sure plugins or customized options. If you’re at the moment working on-premises database servers or self-managed Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) cases, you’ll be able to migrate to Amazon Aurora MySQL-Suitable Version, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Suitable Version, Amazon RDS for MySQL, Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL past the neighborhood EoL date, and proceed to make use of these variations these variations with RDS Prolonged Assist whereas benefiting from a managed service. If you could migrate many databases, you may also make the most of RDS Prolonged Assist to separate your migration into phases, making certain a clean transition with out overwhelming IT assets.

In 2024, RDS Prolonged Assist can be obtainable for RDS for MySQL main variations 5.7 and better, RDS for PostgreSQL main variations 11 and better, Aurora MySQL-compatible model 2 and better, and Aurora PostgreSQL-compatible model 11 and better. For a listing of all future supported variations, see Supported MySQL main variations on Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora main variations within the AWS documentation.

RDS Prolonged Assist is priced per vCPU per hour. Be taught extra about pricing particulars and timelines for RDS Prolonged Assist at Amazon Aurora pricing, RDS for MySQL pricing, and RDS for PostgreSQL pricing. For extra info, see the weblog posts about Amazon RDS Prolonged Assist for MySQL and PostgreSQL databases within the AWS Database Weblog.

Why are we routinely enrolling all databases to Amazon RDS Prolonged Assist?
We had initially knowledgeable you that RDS Prolonged Assist would supply the opt-in APIs and console options in December 2023. In that announcement, we mentioned that when you determined to not choose your database in to RDS Prolonged Assist, it will routinely improve to a more moderen engine model beginning on March 1, 2024. For instance, you’ll be upgraded from Aurora MySQL 2 or RDS for MySQL 5.7 to Aurora MySQL 3 or RDS for MySQL 8.0 and from Aurora PostgreSQL 11 or RDS for PostgreSQL 11 to Aurora PostgreSQL 15 and RDS for PostgreSQL 15, respectively.

Nonetheless, we heard numerous suggestions from clients that these computerized upgrades could trigger their purposes to expertise breaking modifications and different unpredictable conduct between main variations of neighborhood DB engines. For instance, an unplanned main model improve might introduce compatibility points or downtime if purposes should not prepared for MySQL 8.0 or PostgreSQL 15.

Computerized enrollment in RDS Prolonged Assist offers you further time and extra management to arrange, plan, and take a look at your database upgrades by yourself timeline, offering you flexibility on when to transition to new main variations whereas persevering with to obtain crucial safety and bug fixes from AWS.

In case you’re frightened about elevated prices because of computerized enrollment in RDS Prolonged Assist, you’ll be able to keep away from RDS Prolonged Assist and related costs by upgrading earlier than the top of RDS normal help.

The way to improve your database to keep away from RDS Prolonged Assist costs
Though RDS Prolonged Assist helps you schedule your improve by yourself timeline, sticking with older variations indefinitely means lacking out on the very best price-performance in your database workload and incurring further prices from RDS Prolonged Assist.

MySQL 8.0 on Aurora MySQL, often known as Aurora MySQL 3, unlocks help for in style Aurora options, resembling International Database, Amazon RDS Proxy, Efficiency Insights, Parallel Question, and Serverless v2 deployments. Upgrading to RDS for MySQL 8.0 offers options together with as much as 3 times larger efficiency versus MySQL 5.7, resembling Multi-AZ cluster deployments, Optimized Reads, Optimized Writes, and help for AWS Graviton2 and Graviton3-based cases.

PostgreSQL 15 on Aurora PostgreSQL helps the Aurora I/O Optimized configuration, Aurora Serverless v2, Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL, pgvector extension, Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL (TLE), and AWS Graviton3-based cases in addition to neighborhood enhancements. Upgrading to RDS for PostgreSQL 15 offers options resembling Multi-AZ DB cluster deployments, RDS Optimized Reads, HypoPG extension, pgvector extension, TLEs for PostgreSQL, and AWS Graviton3-based cases.

Main model upgrades could make database modifications that aren’t backward-compatible with present purposes. It’s best to manually modify your database occasion to improve to the main model. It’s strongly beneficial that you simply completely take a look at any main model improve on non-production cases earlier than making use of it to manufacturing to make sure compatibility along with your purposes. For extra details about an in-place improve from MySQL 5.7 to eight.0, see the incompatibilities between the 2 variations, Aurora MySQL in-place main model improve, and RDS for MySQL upgrades within the AWS documentation. For the in-place improve from PostgreSQL 11 to fifteen, you should utilize the pg_upgrade technique.

To reduce downtime throughout upgrades, we advocate utilizing Absolutely Managed Blue/Inexperienced Deployments in Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS. With only a few steps, you should utilize Amazon RDS Blue/Inexperienced Deployments to create a separate, synchronized, absolutely managed staging surroundings that mirrors the manufacturing surroundings. This entails launching a parallel inexperienced surroundings with higher model replicas of your manufacturing databases decrease model. After validating the inexperienced surroundings, you’ll be able to shift site visitors over to it. Then, the blue surroundings may be decommissioned. To study extra, see Blue/Inexperienced Deployments for Aurora MySQL and Aurora PostgreSQL or Blue/Inexperienced Deployments for RDS for MySQL and RDS for PostgreSQL within the AWS documentation. Most often, Blue/Inexperienced Deployments are the best choice to scale back downtime, apart from restricted circumstances in Amazon Aurora or Amazon RDS.

For extra info on performing a significant model improve in every DB engine, see the next guides within the AWS documentation.

Now obtainable
Amazon RDS Prolonged Assist is now obtainable for all clients working Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS cases utilizing MySQL 5.7, PostgreSQL 11, and better main variations in AWS Areas, together with the AWS GovCloud (US) Areas past the top of the usual help date in 2024. You don’t must choose in to RDS Prolonged Assist, and also you get the flexibleness to improve your databases and continued help for as much as 3 years.

Be taught extra about RDS Prolonged Assist within the Amazon Aurora Consumer Information and the Amazon RDS Consumer Information. For pricing particulars and timelines for RDS Prolonged Assist, see Amazon Aurora pricing, RDS for MySQL pricing, and RDS for PostgreSQL pricing.

Please ship suggestions to AWS re:Submit for Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora or by way of your ordinary AWS Assist contacts.

— Channy