Amazon Neptune Engine Version 1.2.0.2 (2022-11-20)
As of 2022-11-20, engine version 1.2.0.2 is being generally deployed. Please note that it takes several days for a new release to become available in every region.
Note
If upgrading from an engine version earlier than 1.2.0.0:
-
Engine release 1.2.0.0 introduced a new format for custom parameter groups and custom cluster parameter groups. As a result, if you are upgrading from an engine version earlier than 1.2.0.0 to engine version 1.2.0.0 or above, you must re-create all your existing custom parameter groups and custom cluster parameter groups using parameter group family
neptune1.2
. Earlier releases used parameter group familyneptune1
, and those parameter groups won't work with release 1.2.0.0 and above. See Amazon Neptune parameter groups for more information. -
Engine release 1.2.0.0 also introduced a new format for undo logs. As a result, any undo logs created by an earlier engine version must be purged and the UndoLogsListSize CloudWatch metric must fall to zero before any upgrade from a version earlier than 1.2.0.0 can get started. If there are too many undo log records (200,000 or more) when you try to start an update, the upgrade attempt can time out while waiting for purging of the undo logs to complete.
You can speed up the purge rate by upgrading the cluster's writer instance, which is where the purging occurs. Doing that before trying to upgrade can bring down the number of undo logs before you start. Increasing the size of the writer to a 24XL instance type can increase your purge rate to more than a million records per hour.
If the
UndoLogsListSize
CloudWatch metric is extremely large, opening a support case may help you explore additional strategies for bringing it down. -
Finally, there was a breaking change in release 1.2.0.0 affecting earlier code that used the Bolt protocol with IAM authentication. Starting with release 1.2.0.0, Bolt needs a resource path for IAM signing. In Java, setting the resource path might look like this:
request.setResourcePath("/openCypher"));
. In other languages, the/openCypher
can be appended to the endpoint URI. See Using the Bolt protocol for examples.
Subsequent Patch Releases for This Release
New Features in This Engine Release
Introduced real-time inductive inference for Gremlin in Neptune ML.
-
Introduced an openCypher extension that supports specifying custom ID values for entities instead of the UUIDs that Neptune otherwise generates. The ability to assign custom IDs makes it easier to migrate to Neptune from Neo4j.
Warning
This extension to the openCypher specification is not backward compatible, because
~id
is now considered a reserved property name. If you are already using~id
as a property in your data and queries, you must migrate the ~id property to a new property key before upgrading to this release. Added several new SPARQL DESCRIBE modes along with query hints to configure them.
Improvements in This Engine Release
Improved openCypher performance, particularly for VLP queries.
-
Improved DFE performance for Gremlin queries with non-terminal limits, such as:
g.withSideEffect('Neptune#useDFE',true).V().hasLabel('Student').limit(5).out('takesCourse')
Query-Language Versions Supported in This Release
Before upgrading a DB cluster to version 1.2.0.2, make sure that your project is compatible with these query-language versions:
Gremlin earliest version supported:
3.5.2
Gremlin latest version supported:
3.5.4
openCypher version:
Neptune-9.0.20190305-1.0
SPARQL version:
1.1
Upgrade Paths to Engine Release 1.2.0.2
Upgrading to This Release
Amazon Neptune 1.2.0.2 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 1.2.0.2 \ --apply-immediately
For Windows:
aws neptune modify-db-cluster ^ --db-cluster-identifier
(your-neptune-cluster)
^ --engine-version 1.2.0.2 ^ --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 Amazon Support
team is available on the community forums and through Amazon Premium Support