Managing gateway updates
Storage Gateway consists of a managed cloud services component and a gateway appliance component that you deploy either on-premises, or on an Amazon EC2 instance in the AWS cloud. Both components receive regular updates. The topics in this section describe the cadence of these updates, how they are applied, and how to configure update-related settings on the gateways in your deployment.
Important
You should treat the Storage Gateway appliance as a managed virtual machine, and should not attempt to access or modify its installation in any way. Attempting to install or update any software packages using methods other than the normal AWS gateway update mechanism (for example, SSM or hypervisor tools) may cause the gateway to malfunction.
Update frequency and expected behavior
AWS updates the cloud services component as needed without causing disruption to deployed gateways. Your deployed gateway appliances receive monthly maintenance updates. Monthly maintenance updates can include operating system and software upgrades, fixes to address stability, performance, and security, and access to new features. All updates are cumulative, and upgrade gateways to the current version when applied. For information about the specific changes included in each update, see Release Notes for Gateway Appliance Software.
Monthly maintenance updates may cause a brief disruption of service. The gateway's VM host doesn't need to reboot during updates, but the gateway will be unavailable for a short period while the gateway appliance updates and restarts.
When you deploy and activate your gateway, a default weekly maintenance window schedule is set. You can modify the maintenance window schedule at any time. You can also turn off monthly maintenance updates, but we recommend leaving them turned on.
Note
Urgent updates will sometimes be applied according to the maintenance window schedule, even if regular maintenance updates are turned off.
Before any update is applied to your gateway, AWS notifies you with a message on the
Storage Gateway console and your AWS Health Dashboard. For more information, see AWS Health Dashboard
When updates are available, the gateway Details tab displays a maintenance message. You can also see the date and time that the last successful update was applied on the Details tab.