Amazon Neptune Engine Version 1.0.2.1.R4 (2019-12-20)

Improvements in This Engine Release

• Neptune now tries always to place any full-text-search call first in the execution pipeline. This reduces the volume of calls to OpenSearch, which can significantly improve performance. See Full-text-search query execution.

• Neptune now raises an IllegalArgumentException if you try to access a non-existent property, vertex, or edge. Previously, Neptune raised an UnsupportedOperationException in that situation.

  For example, if you try to add an edge referencing a nonexistent vertex, you will now raise an IllegalArgumentException.

Defects Fixed in This Engine Release

• Fixed a Gremlin bug where a union traversal inside a project-by does not return results or returns incorrect results.

• Fixed a Gremlin bug that caused nested .project().by() steps to return incorrect results.

Query-Language Versions Supported in This Release

Before upgrading a DB cluster to version 1.0.2.1.R4, make sure that your project is compatible with these query-language versions:

• Gremlin version: 3.4.1

• SPARQL version: 1.1

Upgrade Paths to Engine Release 1.0.2.1.R4

You can manually upgrade any previous Neptune engine release to this release.

However, automatic updating to this release is not supported.

Upgrading to This Release

Amazon Neptune 1.0.2.1.R4 is now generally available.

If a DB cluster is running an engine version from which there is an upgrade path to this release, it is eligible to be upgraded now. You can upgrade any eligible cluster using the DB cluster operations on the console or by using the SDK. The following CLI command will upgrade an eligible cluster immediately:

For Linux, OS X, or Unix:

aws neptune modify-db-cluster \
    --db-cluster-identifier (your-neptune-cluster) \
    --engine-version 1.0.2.1 \
    --apply-immediately

For Windows:

aws neptune modify-db-cluster ^
    --db-cluster-identifier (your-neptune-cluster) ^
    --engine-version 1.0.2.1 ^
    --apply-immediately

Updates are applied to all instances in a DB cluster simultaneously. An update requires a database restart on those instances, so you will experience downtime ranging from 20–30 seconds to several minutes, after which you can resume using the DB cluster.

Always test before you upgrade

When a new major or minor Neptune engine version is released, always test your Neptune applications on it first before upgrading to it. Even a minor upgrade could introduce new features or behavior that would affect your code.

Start by comparing the release notes pages from your current version to those of the targeted version to see if there will be changes in query language versions or other breaking changes.

The best way to test a new version before upgrading your production DB cluster is to clone your production cluster so that the clone is running the new engine version. You can then run queries on the clone without affecting the production DB cluster.

Always create a manual snapshot before you upgrade

Before performing an upgrade, we strongly recommend that you always create a manual snapshot of your DB cluster. Having an automatic snapshot only offers short-term protection, whereas a manual snapshot remains available until you explicitly delete it.

In certain cases Neptune creates a manual snapshot for you as a part of the upgrade process, but you should not rely on this, and should create your own manual snapshot in any case.

When you are certain that you won't need to revert your DB cluster to its pre-upgrade state, you can explicitly delete the manual snapshot that you created yourself, as well as the manual snapshot that Neptune might have created. If Neptune creates a manual snapshot, it will have a name that begins with preupgrade, followed by the name of your DB cluster, the source engine version, the target engine version, and the date.

Note

If you are trying to upgrade while a pending action is in process, you may encounter an error such as the following:

   We're sorry, your request to modify DB cluster (cluster identifier) has failed.
   Cannot modify engine version because instance (instance identifier) is
   running on an old configuration. Apply any pending maintenance actions on the instance before
   proceeding with the upgrade.

If you encounter this error, wait for the pending action to finish, or trigger a maintenance window immediately to let the previous upgrade complete.

For more information about upgrading your engine version, see Maintaining your Amazon Neptune DB Cluster. If you have any questions or concerns, the AWS Support team is available on the community forums and through AWS Premium Support.