How do I manage Aurora Extended Support for my Amazon RDS clusters that are near end-of-life support?

Resolution

For an overview on RDS Extended Support, see Amazon RDS Extended Support with Amazon Aurora. Also, see Introducing Amazon RDS Extended Support for MySQL databases on Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS.

Note: If you receive errors when you run AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) commands, then see Troubleshooting errors for the AWS CLI. Also, make sure that you're using the most recent AWS CLI version.

View your RDS Extended Support status

You can use the Amazon RDS console, AWS CLI, or RDS API to view the enrollment status of your database for RDS Extended Support.

When a major engine version reaches the end of standard support and you turned on RDS Extended Support, Amazon RDS charges you for RDS Extended Support. If you don't turn on RDS Extended Support, then your cluster upgrades to a major engine version when it reaches the end of the standard support date. For more information, see RDS Extended Support behavior.

Note: AWS doesn't charge you for RDS Extended Support until after your DB major engine version reaches the end of standard support.

For information about support dates, see Viewing support dates for engine versions in Amazon RDS Extended Support and Release calendar for Aurora MySQL major versions.

Turn on RDS Extended Support

When you turn on RDS Extended Support for an Aurora DB cluster, the cluster remains in RDS Extended Support for the life of the cluster.

To turn off RDS Extended Support, upgrade each engine to a later major engine version that's still in standard support. Or, you can delete the cluster that's running a major engine version that's passed the end of standard support date.

For major engine versions that reach the end of standard support, Aurora automatically activates RDS Extended support on instances that aren't already in RDS Extended Support.

Note: Amazon RDS automatically activates RDS Extended Support for Aurora MySQL-Compatible version 2 and later.

Update minor versions

RDS Extended Support is available on only certain minor versions. Minor versions can support RDS Extended Support after major versions reach the Community end of life dates.

Aurora MySQL-Compatible clusters that are in RDS Extended Support automatically upgrade to the latest minor version that's released before the end of standard support date. Aurora doesn't upgrade your minor version until after your major engine version passes the end of standard support date. For more information, see Versions with Amazon RDS Extended Support and Release calendar for Aurora MySQL minor versions.

Review RDS Extended Support charges

For provisioned instances on Amazon Aurora, AWS charges per hour for each vCPU (number of vCPU * number of hours).

For Amazon Aurora Serverless, RDS Extended Support AWS charges per hour for each Aurora Capacity Unit (ACU) that your database uses.

RDS Extended Support pricing also depends on your AWS Region and the calendar date. After you upgrade your cluster to a later version in standard support, the charges automatically stop. Or, the charges automatically stop after you delete the cluster that's running a major version that's passed the end of standard support date. For more information, see Amazon RDS Extended Support costs.

After the end of standard support date passes, you can use the AWS CLI or the RDS API to prevent additional RDS Extended Support charges. For more information, see Considerations for RDS Extended Support.

To estimate the charges for RDS Extended Support, see Estimating the charges for Amazon RDS Extended Support.