Upgrades of the RDS for MySQL DB engine - Amazon Relational Database Service
ConsiderationsFinding valid upgrade targetsUpgrading a MySQL DB instance

Upgrades of the RDS for MySQL DB engine

When Amazon RDS supports a new version of a database engine, you can upgrade your DB instances to the new version. There are two kinds of upgrades for MySQL databases: major version upgrades and minor version upgrades.

Major version upgrades

Major version upgrades can contain database changes that are not backward-compatible with existing applications. As a result, you must manually perform major version upgrades of your DB instances. You can initiate a major version upgrade by modifying your DB instance. Before you perform a major version upgrade, we recommend that you follow the instructions in Major version upgrades for RDS for MySQL.

For major version upgrades of Multi-AZ DB instance deployments, Amazon RDS simultaneously upgrades both the primary and standby replicas. Your DB instance won't be available until the upgrade completes. Currently, Amazon RDS doesn't support major version upgrades for Multi-AZ DB cluster deployments.

Tip

You can minimize the downtime required for a major version upgrade by using a blue/green deployment. For more information, see Using Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments for database updates.

Minor version upgrades

Minor version upgrades include only changes that are backward-compatible with existing applications. You can initiate a minor version upgrade manually by modifying your DB instance. Or, you can enable the Auto minor version upgrade option when creating or modifying a DB instance. Doing so means that Amazon RDS automatically upgrades your DB instance after testing and approving the new version. For information about performing an upgrade, see Upgrading a DB instance engine version.

When you perform a minor version upgrade of a Multi-AZ DB cluster, Amazon RDS upgrades the reader DB instances one at a time. Then, one of the reader DB instances switches to be the new writer DB instance. Amazon RDS then upgrades the old writer instance (which is now a reader instance).

Note

The downtime for a minor version upgrade of a Multi-AZ DB instance deployment can last for several minutes. Multi-AZ DB clusters typically reduce the downtime of minor version upgrades to approximately 35 seconds. When used with RDS Proxy, you can further reduce downtime to one second or less. For more information, see Amazon RDS Proxy. Alternately, you can use an open source database proxy such as ProxySQL,PgBouncer, or the AWS JDBC Driver for MySQL.

If your MySQL DB instance uses read replicas, then you must upgrade all of the read replicas before upgrading the source instance.

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Considerations for MySQL upgrades

Amazon RDS takes two or more DB snapshots during the upgrade process. Amazon RDS takes up to two snapshots of the DB instance before making any upgrade changes. If the upgrade doesn't work for your databases, you can restore one of these snapshots to create a DB instance running the old version. Amazon RDS takes another snapshot of the DB instance when the upgrade completes. Amazon RDS takes these snapshots regardless of whether AWS Backup manages the backups for the DB instance.

Note

Amazon RDS only takes DB snapshots if you have set the backup retention period for your DB instance to a number greater than 0. To change your backup retention period, see Modifying an Amazon RDS DB instance.

After the upgrade is complete, you can't revert to the previous version of the database engine. If you want to return to the previous version, restore the first DB snapshot taken to create a new DB instance.

You control when to upgrade your DB instance to a new version supported by Amazon RDS. This level of control helps you maintain compatibility with specific database versions and test new versions with your application before deploying in production. When you are ready, you can perform version upgrades at the times that best fit your schedule.

If your DB instance uses read replication, then you must upgrade all of the read replicas before upgrading the source instance.

Finding valid upgrade targets

When you use the AWS Management Console to upgrade a DB instance, it shows the valid upgrade targets for the DB instance. You can also run the following AWS CLI command to identify the valid upgrade targets for a DB instance:

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions \
  --engine mysql \
  --engine-version version_number \
  --query "DBEngineVersions[*].ValidUpgradeTarget[*].{EngineVersion:EngineVersion}" --output text

For Windows:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions ^
  --engine mysql ^
  --engine-version version_number ^
  --query "DBEngineVersions[*].ValidUpgradeTarget[*].{EngineVersion:EngineVersion}" --output text

For example, to identify the valid upgrade targets for a MySQL version 8.0.28 DB instance, run the following AWS CLI command:

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions \
  --engine mysql \
  --engine-version 8.0.28 \
  --query "DBEngineVersions[*].ValidUpgradeTarget[*].{EngineVersion:EngineVersion}" --output text

For Windows:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions ^
  --engine mysql ^
  --engine-version 8.0.28 ^
  --query "DBEngineVersions[*].ValidUpgradeTarget[*].{EngineVersion:EngineVersion}" --output text

Upgrading a MySQL DB instance

For information about manually or automatically upgrading a MySQL DB instance, see Upgrading a DB instance engine version.