Overview of RDS for Oracle engine upgrades
Before upgrading your RDS for Oracle DB instance, familiarize yourself with the following concepts.
Topics
Major and minor version upgrades
Major versions are major releases of Oracle Database that occur every 1-2 years. Oracle Database 19c and Oracle Database 21c are major releases.
Every quarter, RDS for Oracle releases new minor engine versions for every supported major engine. A Release Update (RU) engine version incorporates bug fixes from Oracle by including the RU patches for the specified quarter. For example, 21.0.0.0.ru-2024-10.rur-2024-10.r1 is a minor version of Oracle Database 21c that incorporates the October 2024 RU.
A Spatial Patch Bundle (SPB) engine version contains RU patches and patches specific to Oracle Spatial. For example, 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1 is a minor engine version that contains the RU patches in engine version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1 plus Spatial patches. Typically, RDS for Oracle releases SPBs 2–3 weeks after the corresponding RU. For an explanation of the differences between RUs and SPBs, see Release Updates (RUs) and Spatial Patch Bundles (SPBs). For information about supported RUs and SPBs, see Release notes for Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Oracle.
RDS for Oracle supports the following upgrades to a DB instance.
| Upgrade type | Application compatibility | Upgrade methods | Sample upgrade path |
|---|---|---|---|
| Major version | A major version upgrade can introduce changes that aren't compatible with existing applications. | Manual only | From Oracle Database 19c to Oracle Database 21c |
| Minor version | A minor version upgrade includes only changes that are backward-compatible with existing applications. | Automatic or manual | From 21.0.0.0.ru-2023-07.rur-2022-07.r1 to 21.0.0.0.ru-2023-10.rur-2022-10.r1 |
Important
When you upgrade your DB engine, an outage occurs. The duration of the outage depends on your engine version and DB instance size.
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.
Support dates and mandatory upgrades for RDS for Oracle
Database versions of RDS for Oracle have expected support dates. When a major or minor version of an RDS for Oracle DB engine nears its end-of-support date, RDS begins mandatory upgrades, also known as forced upgrades. RDS publishes the following information:
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A recommendation for you to begin manually upgrading instances on deprecated versions to supported versions
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A date after which you can no longer create instances on the unsupported versions
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A date on which RDS begins to upgrade your instances to supported versions automatically during maintenance windows
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A date on which RDS begins to upgrade your instances to supported versions automatically outside of maintenance windows
Important
Forced upgrades can have unexpected consequences for Amazon CloudFormation stacks. If you rely on RDS to upgrade your DB instances automatically, you might encounter issues with Amazon CloudFormation.
This section contains the following topics:
Topics
Support dates for major releases of RDS for Oracle
RDS for Oracle major versions remain available at least until the end of support date for the corresponding Oracle Database release version. You can use the following dates to plan your testing and upgrade cycles. These dates represent the earliest date that an upgrade to a newer version might be required. If Amazon extends support for an RDS for Oracle version for longer than originally stated, we plan to update this table to reflect the later date.
| Oracle Database major release version | Expected date for upgrading to a newer version |
|---|---|
|
Oracle Database 19c |
December 31, 2029 with BYOL Premier Support (fees waived for Extended Support) December 31, 2032 with BYOL Extended Support (extra cost) or an Unlimited License Agreement December 31, 2029 with License Included (LI) |
|
Oracle Database 21c |
July 31, 2027 (not available for Extended Support) |
RDS notifies you at least 12 months before you need to upgrade to a newer major version. The notification describes the upgrade process, including the timing of important milestones, the effect on your DB instances, and recommended actions. We recommend that you thoroughly test your applications with new RDS for Oracle versions before you upgrade your database to a major version.
After this advance notification period, an automatic upgrade to the subsequent major version might be applied to any RDS for Oracle DB instance still running the older version. If so, the upgrade is started during scheduled maintenance windows.
For more information, see Release Schedule of Current Database Releases
Support dates for minor versions of RDS for Oracle
The following minor versions of Oracle Database 19c are nearing their end-of-support date:
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19.0.0.0.ru-2019-07.rur-2019-07.r1
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19.0.0.0.ru-2019-10.rur-2019-10.r1
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19.0.0.0.ru-2020-01.rur-2020-01.r1
The following minor versions of Oracle Database 21c are nearing their end-of-support date:
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21.0.0.0.ru-2022-01.rur-2022-01.r1
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21.0.0.0.ru-2022-04.rur-2022-04.r1
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21.0.0.0.ru-2022-07.rur-2022-07.r1
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21.0.0.0.ru-2022-10.rur-2022-10.r1
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21.0.0.0.ru-2023-01.rur-2023-01.r1
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21.0.0.0.ru-2023-01.rur-2023-01.r2
The following table shows a schedule of the mandatory minor version upgrades for the preceding deprecated versions.
| Date | Action for deprecated versions |
|---|---|
| 07/02/25 |
You can no longer create DB instances running deprecated versions. Either upgrade your DB instances manually to the latest release update (RU) or wait for RDS to upgrade them automatically. |
| 08/01/25 – 09/15/25 |
RDS force upgrades DB instances in the scheduled maintenance window to the latest RU. RDS also upgrades any instances restored from snapshots of the deprecated versions. |
| 09/15/25 |
RDS begins to force upgrade DB instances to the latest RU regardless of the scheduled maintenance window. The force upgrades proceed until all instances are running supported minor versions. |
If you don't want RDS to automatically upgrade your instances running deprecated versions, do the following:
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Upgrade your Oracle Database 19c and 21c minor versions manually to the latest RU or to any RU that isn't scheduled for mandatory upgrades. For example, you can upgrade 21.0.0.0.ru-2023-01.rur-2023-01.r2 to 21.0.0.0.ru-2023-04.rur-2023-04.r2, or upgrade 19.0.0.0.ru-2019-07.rur-2019-07.r1 to 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r2.
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Upgrade DB snapshots that use deprecated minor versions, and then restore the snapshots.
For more information about minor versions, see Release notes for Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Oracle.
Oracle engine version management
With DB engine version management, you control when and how the database engine is patched and upgraded. You get the flexibility to maintain compatibility with database engine patch versions. You can also test new patch versions of RDS for Oracle to ensure they work with your application before deploying them in production. In addition, you upgrade the versions on your own terms and timelines.
Note
Amazon RDS periodically aggregates official Oracle database patches using an Amazon RDS-specific DB engine version. To see a list of which Oracle patches are contained in an Amazon RDS Oracle-specific engine version, go to Amazon RDS for Oracle Release Notes.
Automatic snapshots during engine upgrades
During upgrades of an Oracle DB instance, snapshots offer protection against upgrade issues. If the backup retention period for your DB instance is greater than 0, Amazon RDS takes the following DB snapshots during the upgrade:
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A snapshot of the DB instance before any upgrade changes have been made. If the upgrade fails, you can restore this snapshot to create a DB instance running the old version.
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A snapshot of the DB instance after the upgrade completes.
Note
To change your backup retention period, see Modifying an Amazon RDS DB instance.
After an upgrade, you can't revert to the previous engine version. However, you can create a new Oracle DB instance by restoring the pre-upgrade snapshot.
Oracle upgrades in a Multi-AZ deployment
If your DB instance is in a Multi-AZ deployment, Amazon RDS upgrades both the primary and standby replicas. If no operating system updates are required, the primary and standby upgrades occur simultaneously. The instances are not available until the upgrade completes.
If operating system updates are required in a Multi-AZ deployment, Amazon RDS applies the updates when you request the database upgrade. Amazon RDS performs the following steps:
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Updates the operating system on the current standby DB instance.
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Fails over the primary DB instance to the standby DB instance.
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Upgrades the database version on the new primary DB instance, which was formerly the standby instance. The primary database is unavailable during the upgrade.
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Updates the operating system on the new standby DB instance, which was formerly the primary DB instance.
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Upgrades the database version on the new standby DB instance.
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Fails over the new primary DB instance back to the original primary DB instance, and the new standby DB instance back to the original standby DB instance. Thus, Amazon RDS returns the replication configuration to its original state.
Oracle upgrades of read replicas
The Oracle DB engine version of the source DB instance and all of its read replicas must be the same. Amazon RDS performs the upgrade in the following stages:
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Upgrades the source DB instance. The read replicas are available during this stage.
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Upgrades the read replicas in parallel, regardless of the replica maintenance windows. The source DB is available during this stage.
For major version upgrades of cross-Region read replicas, Amazon RDS performs additional actions:
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Generates an option group for the target version automatically
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Copies all options and option settings from the original option group to the new option group
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Associates the upgraded cross-Region read replica with the new option group