Oracle minor version upgrades - Amazon Relational Database Service
Turning on automatic minor version upgrades for OracleBefore an automatic minor version upgrade for Oracle is scheduledWhen RDS schedules automatic minor version upgrades for OracleManaging an automatic minor version upgrade for Oracle

Oracle minor version upgrades

A minor version upgrade applies an Oracle Database Patch Set Update (PSU) or Release Update (RU) to a major engine version. For example, if your DB instance runs major version Oracle Database 21c and minor version 21.0.0.0.ru-2022-07.rur-2022-07.r1, you can upgrade your upgrade to minor version 21.0.0.0.ru-2022-10.rur-2022-10.r1. Typically, a new minor version is available every quarter.

Note

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. Keep this in mind when planning your 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.

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.

  • Your DB instance doesn't already have a pending upgrade scheduled.

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

Before an automatic minor version upgrade for Oracle is scheduled

RDS publishes an advance notice before it begins scheduling automatic upgrades. You can find the notification in the Maintenance & backups tab of the database details page. The message has the following format:

An automatic minor version upgrade to engine version will become available on availability-date and will be applied during a subsequent maintenance window.

The availability-date in the preceding message is the date when RDS starts scheduling upgrades for DB instances in your AWS Region. It is not the date on which the upgrade of your DB instance is scheduled to occur.

You can also get the upgrade availability date by using the describe-pending-maintenance-actions command in the AWS CLI, as shown in the following example:

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-2022-10.rur-2022-10.r1",
                    "CurrentApplyDate": "2022-12-02T08:10:00Z",
                    "OptInStatus": "next-maintenance"
                }
            ]
        }, ...

The following table describes your options for each type of pending maintenance action message.

Pending maintenance action message When message appears Eligible to be applied at the next maintenance window? Eligible to be applied immediately? Eligible to have the opt-in undone?
An automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version will become available on availability-date and should be applied during a subsequent maintenance window. 4-6 weeks before automatic upgrades are scheduled. Yes Yes Yes
Automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version On or after availability-date. RDS automatically applies this upgrade in the next maintenance window of the DB instance. Yes Yes No

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

When RDS schedules automatic minor version upgrades for Oracle

When the availability date for automatic upgrades arrives, RDS begins scheduling upgrades. For most AWS Regions, RDS schedules your upgrade to the latest quarterly RU approximately four to six weeks after the availability date. The scheduled date varies depending on the AWS Region and other factors. For more information about RUs and RURs, see Amazon RDS for Oracle Release Notes.

When RDS schedules the upgrade, the following notification appears in the Maintenance & backups tab of the database details page:

Automatic minor version upgrade to engine-version

The preceding message indicates that RDS has scheduled your DB engine to be upgraded in the next maintenance window.

Managing an automatic minor version upgrade for Oracle

When a new minor version becomes available, you can upgrade your DB instance to this version manually. The following example upgrades the DB instance named orclinst1 immediately:

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 opt out of an automatic minor version upgrade that hasn't been scheduled yet, set opt-in-type to undo-opt-in, as in the following example:

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

If RDS has already scheduled an upgrade for your DB instance, you can't use apply-pending-maintenance-action to cancel it. But you can modify your DB instance and turn off the automatic minor upgrade feature, which then unschedules the upgrade.

To learn how to turn off automatic minor version upgrades, see Automatically upgrading the minor engine version. For more information about apply-pending-maintenance-action, see the AWS CLI Command Reference.