How can I upgrade my Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible global database?

Short description

You can perform either a minor or a major version upgrade to the Aurora clusters in your global database configuration. Upgrading an Aurora global database follows the same procedure as upgrading your individual Aurora MySQL-Compatible DB clusters. But, there are a few differences to be aware of for global clusters. This depends on the type of upgrade that you are performing and the type of Aurora DB cluster that you are using.

Note: It's a best practice to test your applications on the upgraded version of Aurora. This applies to both minor and major version upgrades.

Resolution

Note: If you receive errors when running AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) commands, make sure that you’re using the most recent AWS CLI version.

Perform a minor version upgrade

Aurora MySQL**-Compatible**

Note: For all minor version upgrades, all secondary clusters must be upgraded before you upgrade the primary cluster.

To perform minor version upgrades on your global cluster, follow the same process that you use for upgrading your individual Aurora clusters. Note that you can't apply automatic upgrades for clusters that are part of a global database.

You can use these methods to update your Aurora MySQL-Compatible global cluster:

• Upgrade your Aurora MySQL cluster by modifying the engine version. To do this, you can either use the AWS CLI or the console. If using the AWS CLI, call modify-db-cluster, and specify the name and version of your DB cluster. Or, modify your cluster by using the Amazon RDS console.
• Apply any pending maintenance to your Aurora MySQL cluster (for versions older than 1.19.0).

For more information, see Upgrading the minor version or patch level of an Aurora MySQL DB cluster.

Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible

The Enable minor version upgrade option is automatically selected when you create a new Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition cluster. Unless you turn this off, any minor upgrades are made to your cluster automatically**.** Because the zero-downtime patching feature isn't available for global clusters, you might experience brief outages during the upgrade process.

For more information, see How to perform minor version upgrades and apply patches.

Perform a major version upgrade

Aurora MySQL-Compatible

During a major version upgrade, the global cluster containing all individual clusters is upgraded at once.

• Follow the steps in How the Aurora MySQL in-place major version upgrade works.
• Be sure to choose the global cluster and not one of the individual clusters. Selecting this choice means that all your clusters are upgraded at the same time, and not one by one. If you're using the Amazon RDS console to upgrade, then choose the item with a Global database role. If you're using the AWS CLI, then call the modify-global-cluster command instead of the modify-db-cluster command.
• After an upgrade, you can't backtrack to a time before the upgrade.
• To troubleshoot issues with your upgrade, see Troubleshooting for Aurora MySQL in-place upgrades.

For more information on how to perform a major upgrade for Aurora MySQL-Compatible, see In-place major upgrades for global databases.

Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible

• When you do a major upgrade on an Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible cluster, it's a best practice to test your applications on the upgraded version. For more information, see Before upgrading your production DB cluster to a new major version.
• Check that your cluster has a recovery point object (RPO) set for the rds.global_db_rpo parameter before you upgrade. This parameter is turned off by default, but you can't perform a major upgrade without turning it on.
• After making sure that you've satisfied all the per-requisites, upgrade your Aurora PostgreSQL global cluster.

For more information on how to perform major upgrades for Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible, see Upgrading the PostgreSQL engine to a new major version.

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Related information

Using Amazon Aurora global databases