Oracle minor version upgrades

In RDS for Oracle, a minor version upgrade is an update to a major DB engine version. In RDS, a minor engine version is either a Release Update (RU) or Spatial Patch Bundle (SPB). For example, if your DB instance runs major version Oracle Database 19c and minor version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-10.rur-2025-10.r1, you can upgrade your DB engine to minor version 19.0.0.0.ru-2026-01.rur-2026-01.r1. RDS for Oracle doesn't support minor version downgrades.

You can upgrade your DB engine to a minor version manually or automatically. To learn how to upgrade manually, see Manually upgrading the engine version. To learn how to configure automatic upgrades, see Automatically upgrading the minor engine version. Whether you upgrade manually or automatically, a minor version upgrade entails downtime. Consider this downtime when you plan your upgrades.

Amazon RDS also supports upgrade rollout policy to manage automatic minor version upgrades across multiple database resources and AWS accounts. For more information, see Using AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy for automatic minor version upgrades.

Important

Make sure that you thoroughly test any upgrade to verify that your applications work correctly before applying the upgrade to your production databases. For more information, see Testing an Oracle DB upgrade.

Release Updates (RUs) and Spatial Patch Bundles (SPBs)

In RDS, a release update (RU) is a quarterly minor engine version that includes security fixes, bug fixes, and new features for Oracle Database. A Spatial Patch Bundle (SPB) is an RU engine version that includes patches designed for the Oracle Spatial option. For example, the SPB named 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1 includes all patches in the corresponding RU 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1 plus patches specific to Spatial. SPBs are supported only for Oracle Database 19c.

When your instance is configured for automatic minor version upgrades, RUs and SPBs are on separate upgrade paths. Typically, an SPB is released 2–3 weeks after its corresponding RU. The following table shows sample minor versions for Oracle Database 19c.

Standard RU upgrade path	SPB upgrade path
19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1	19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1
19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.rur-2025-04.r1	19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.spb-1.r1
19.0.0.0.ru-2025-07.rur-2025-07.r1	19.0.0.0.ru-2025-07.spb-1.r1
19.0.0.0.ru-2025-10.rur-2025-10.r1	19.0.0.0.ru-2025-10.spb-1.r1

If your DB instance is configured for automatic upgrades, your instance is on the upgrade path corresponding to your current version. For example, if your DB instance runs version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1, then when 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.rur-2025-04.r1 is released, your instance automatically upgrades to this RU. Similarly, if your DB instance runs 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1, then when 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.spb-1.r1 is released, your instance automatically upgrades to this SPB. An instance running 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1, which is an RU, won't automatically upgrade to 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.spb-1.r1, which is an SPB on a separate upgrade path.

You can upgrade your DB instance to SPBs even if your instance doesn't use Spatial, but the Spatial patches apply only to Oracle Spatial. You can upgrade manually from an RU to an SPB at the same engine version or higher. For example, you can upgrade your instance from 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1 to either of the following engine versions:

• 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1

• 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.spb-1.r1

You can upgrade your instance from an SPB to an RU only if the RU is a higher engine version. For example, you can upgrade from SPB version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.spb-1.r1 to a higher RU version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-07.rur-2025-07.r1 but not to the same RU version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.rur-2025-04.r1.

If your DB instance is configured for automatic minor version upgrades, and you manually upgrade from an RU to an SPB or from an SPB to an RU, your automatic upgrade path changes. Suppose that you manually upgrade from RU version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1 to SPB version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1. Your next automatic minor version upgrade will be to SPB version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-04.spb-1.r1.

Because SPBs function as RUs, the RDS APIs for upgrading your instance to RUs and SPBs are identical. The following commands demonstrate upgrading to an RU and to an SPB.

aws rds modify-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier mydbinstance \
    --engine-version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1

aws rds modify-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier mydbinstance \
    --engine-version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1

For more information about the Oracle Spatial option, see How Spatial Patch Bundles (SPBs) work. For supported RUs and SPBs for Oracle Database 19c, see Amazon RDS for Oracle Database 19c (19.0.0.0).

Turning on automatic minor version upgrades for Oracle

In an automatic minor version upgrade, RDS applies the latest available minor version to your Oracle database without manual intervention. An Amazon RDS for Oracle DB instance schedules your upgrade during the next maintenance window in the following circumstances:

• Your DB instance has the Auto minor version upgrade option turned on.

• Your DB instance isn't already running the latest minor DB engine version.

To learn how to turn on automatic upgrades, see Automatically upgrading the minor engine version.

Using AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy for automatic minor version upgrades

Amazon RDS for Oracle supports AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy to manage automatic minor version upgrades across multiple database resources and AWS accounts. This policy eliminates the operational overhead of coordinating automatic minor version upgrades either manually or through custom tools, while ensuring upgrades are first applied in non-production environments before being rolled out to production. When a new minor engine version becomes available, Amazon RDS upgrades your DB instances based on their configured upgrade rollout order:

Upgrade Rollout Order	Typical Use Case	When Upgrade Begins
First	Development and Test Environments	Earliest - ideal for validating new versions
Second	Staging and Non-critical Production Environments	After "First" phase completes
Last	Critical Production Environments	After "Second" phase completes

Important

If you do not configure an upgrade rollout order for your DB instance, it defaults to second.

For detailed information about phase timing and duration, see How Amazon RDS schedules automatic minor version upgrades. For information about configuring upgrade rollout policies in AWS Organizations, see Using AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy for automatic minor version upgrades.

Notification of automatic minor version upgrades in RDS for Oracle

If automatic minor version upgrade is enabled on your DB instance, RDS for Oracle creates pending maintenance actions to notify you before applying upgrades. You can view these pending maintenance actions on the Maintenance & backups tab of your database details page in the Amazon RDS console.

When a new minor version becomes available, RDS for Oracle publishes an early notification (pending maintenance action). The early notification has the following format:

An automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version will be applied during your maintenance window on apply-date based on the upgrade rollout order rollout-order. You can change the upgrade rollout order or apply this upgrade manually at any time before the scheduled date through the AWS console or AWS CLI.

apply-date in the early notification is the date when Amazon RDS will upgrade your DB instance. rollout-order is your upgrade rollout order (first, second, or last). If you have not configured an upgrade rollout policy, this value is second by default. For more information, see Using AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy for automatic minor version upgrades.

When the upgrade rollout phase begins, the pending maintenance action message changes to the following format:

Automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version

This message indicates that the upgrade has been scheduled and will be applied during your maintenance window on the scheduled apply date. You can check the scheduled apply date on the Maintenance & backups tab of your database details page in the Amazon RDS console or in the CurrentApplyDate field of the describe-pending-maintenance-actions API response.

The following example shows you can get the details about pending maintenance actions by using the describe-pending-maintenance-actions command in the AWS CLI:

aws rds describe-pending-maintenance-actions 

    "PendingMaintenanceActions": [
        {
            "ResourceIdentifier": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:orclinst1",
            "PendingMaintenanceActionDetails": [
                {
                    "Action": "db-upgrade",
                    "Description": "Automatic minor version upgrade to 21.0.0.0.ru-2024-07.rur-2024-07.r1",
                    "CurrentApplyDate": "2024-12-02T08:10:00Z"
                }
            ]
        }, ...

For more information about describe-pending-maintenance-actions, see the AWS CLI Command Reference.

How Amazon RDS schedules automatic minor version upgrades

When you use AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy, Amazon RDS upgrades DB instances in phases based on their configured rollout order. This section describes the timing and duration of each phase.

Phase 0: Early Notification

When RDS for Oracle releases a new minor version (typically 3 to 4 weeks after Oracle's quarterly RU release), all DB instances with auto minor version upgrade enabled receive an early notification. This notification appears on the Maintenance & backups tab of the database details page in the Amazon RDS console and in the describe-pending-maintenance-actions API response. The early notification phase lasts 2 weeks. During this phase, no automatic upgrades occur.

Phase 1: Upgrade Rollout Order First

At the end of the early notification phase, RDS for Oracle begins upgrading DB instances with the upgrade rollout order first. This phase lasts 2 to 3 weeks for the January, April, July quarterly minor versions, and 7 to 8 weeks for the October quarterly minor version. The extended period for the October minor version provides sufficient time to test the new minor version during the year-end holiday season. New DB instances created during this phase with the upgrade rollout order first will be upgraded automatically.

Phase 2: Upgrade Rollout Order Second

At the end of phase 1, RDS for Oracle begins upgrading DB instances with upgrade rollout order second. This phase lasts 2 weeks for all quarterly minor versions. New DB instances created with upgrade rollout order first or second during this phase will be upgraded automatically.

Phase 3: Upgrade Rollout Order Last

At the end of Phase 2, RDS for Oracle begins upgrading DB instances with upgrade rollout order last. This phase lasts until the next quarterly minor version release. New DB instances created with upgrade rollout order first, second, or last during this phase will be upgraded automatically.

Phase	When it starts	Duration	Pending maintenance action message
Phase 0: Early Notification	When RDS for Oracle releases a new minor version	2 weeks	An automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version will be applied during your maintenance window on apply-date based on the upgrade rollout order rollout-order. You can change the upgrade rollout order or apply this upgrade manually at any time before the scheduled date through the AWS console or AWS CLI.
Phase 1: Upgrade Rollout Order First	End of early notification phase	2 to 4 weeks for January/April/July minor versions, 7 to 9 weeks for October minor version	Automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version
Phase 2: Upgrade Rollout Order Second	End of Phase 1	2 weeks	Automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version
Phase 3: Upgrade Rollout Order Last	End of Phase 2	Until the next quarterly minor version release	Automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version

Managing an automatic minor version upgrade in RDS for Oracle

When auto minor version upgrade is enabled on your DB instance, Amazon RDS automatically upgrades your DB instance to the latest minor version during your maintenance window. However, you can choose to apply the upgrade manually before the scheduled date using the AWS CLI or on the Maintenance & backups tab of the database details page.

To upgrade your DB instance immediately instead of waiting for the scheduled maintenance window:

aws rds apply-pending-maintenance-action \
    --resource-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:orclinst1 \
    --apply-action db-upgrade \
    --opt-in-type immediate

To apply the upgrade during your next maintenance window instead of the scheduled apply date:

aws rds apply-pending-maintenance-action \
    --resource-identifier arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:orclinst1 \
    --apply-action db-upgrade \
    --opt-in-type next-maintenance

To opt out of an automatic minor version upgrade, modify your DB instance and turn off the automatic minor version upgrade option. This unschedules any pending automatic upgrade.

To learn more about how to turn off automatic minor version upgrade, see Automatically upgrading the minor engine version. If you need assistance with turning off automatic minor version upgrade, please reach out to the AWS Support.

Sometimes a new minor version becomes available before RDS applies a previous minor version. For example, your instance is running on 21.0.0.0.ru-2025-07.rur-2025-07.r1 when both 21.0.0.0.ru-2025-10.rur-2025-10.r1 and 21.0.0.0.ru-2026-01.rur-2026-01.r1 are available as upgrade targets. In this situation, to avoid unnecessary downtime for your DB instances, RDS schedules the automatic minor version upgrade to the most recent version, skipping the upgrade to the previous version. In this example, RDS upgrades your instance from 21.0.0.0.ru-2025-07.rur-2025-07.r1 directly to 21.0.0.0.ru-2026-01.rur-2026-01.r1.