Staying Ahead of Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS MySQL 5.7 End of Life – An Enterprise Guide

End of life is creeping up on MySQL 5.7 instances on Amazon Web Services (AWS), with September 2023, December 2023, and October 2024 being the key months to remember.

Amazon RDS for MySQL 5.7 has two end of standard support dates, depending on the minor version you’re using:

• September 2023: 5.7.37 and 5.7.38
• December 2023: 5.7.39 to 5.7.42

The MySQL 5.7 compatible version of Amazon Aurora, 2.11.2, has an end of life date of October 31, 2024.

Keep these considerations in mind as you begin preparing to upgrade your MySQL 5.7 databases on Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS.

Tips for Amazon Aurora and RDS MySQL Upgrade Planning

• Analyze Compatibility: Review the MySQL 8.0 release notes, paying close attention to changes that may impact your existing applications, queries, and scripts. Identify potential incompatibilities using MySQL 8.0 compatibility checkers and plan for any necessary adjustments to your databases and applications.
• Create and test database backups: MySQL 8.0 makes it tricky to rollback to 5.7, so make sure you have a fully tested database backup as an insurance policy.
• Don’t wait until the last minute: Amazon Aurora doesn’t force major version upgrades on users except when the database version is deprecated – aka when MySQL 5.7 reaches end of life on the platform. If you take too long to act on your upgrade, the choice will be made for you. Chaos will ensue if your mission-critical applications break from a forced upgrade, and it will be much more expensive to handle.
• Make sure your databases are in good shape before the upgrade. Go through a database health check to solve any lingering issues before you go through this process.

Choose Your AWS RDS and Aurora MySQL Upgrade Method

You can opt for an in-place upgrade, or you can restore a snapshot on Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS. For RDS, the currently supported MySQL 8.0 versions include 8.0.28 and 8.0.30 to 8.0.33. On Amazon Aurora, you would upgrade Amazon Aurora MySQL compatible versions 2.07.9, 2.11.1, and 2.11.2 into 3.03.1.

Before you proceed with either option, ensure that you have a working backup in case something goes wrong. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) can assist with this upgrade process, from checking for compatibility issues to minimizing the downtime required for the upgrade to MySQL 8.0.

Give Yourself Plenty of Maintenance Window Time

You don’t want unplanned downtime to get in the way of daily business operations. Allocate an abundance of time to go through the AWS MySQL 5.7 to 8.0 upgrade. While this can be challenging, it’s important to have issues fully resolved before you go to MySQL 8.x in production.

Learn more about MySQL 5.7 end of life and the MySQL 8.0 upgrade process in our white paper “How to Plan a MySQL 5.7 to MySQL 8.0 Upgrade Before End of Life.”