Enabling rds.logical_replication for creation of blue/green deployment for mandatory upgrade from R4 to R5 Maria

Question

Good Day,

I am trying to following the instructions detailed here (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/blue-green-deployments.html) to update my MariaDB from Type R4 to R5 following a request from AWS to do so. ("We strongly recommend that you migrate your existing Amazon RDS database instances running M4, R4, and T2 instance types to newer generation instance types before May 31, 2024.")

I am completely new to this and am approaching it as complete novice. The database is connected to an alpha anywhere application that is an essential part of my business and used continuously by my customers so it is important that downtime in minimized.

The procedure states that the database must be associated with a custom DB parameter group, which it is, and this must have rds.logical_replication enabled. When  I try to edit the Parameters in my custom parameter group, there is no Parameter called rds.logical_replication.

Does anyone know why this might be, and will blue.green creation still work without it?

Answer

Hi Chris,

I assume that you are looking the reference for PostgreSQL RDS and not for MySQL/MariaDB RDS.

The document[1] below does not have the mention of "Preparing an RDS for MySQL/MariaDB DB instance for a blue/green deployment" so I will take up with the documentation team to update the page.

That being said, the only requirement for MySQL/MariaDB RDS instance to have Blue Green Deployment is to have automated backups to be turned on (backup retention period >=1). So if you have automated backups for MariaDB RDS turned ON then you should be good. And there is no downtime associated while you create a Blue Green Deployment for your MariaDB RDS. If you have backup retention as 0 i.e. automated backups being disabled then enabling it back will require some downtime.

Also since you are new to blue/green deployment then I would recommend going through the overview page[2] and test this out on your test/staging instance to get some hands-on experience.

References:-

[1] Creating a blue/green deployment - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/blue-green-deployments-creating.html

[2] Overview of Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments  - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/blue-green-deployments-overview.html

Enabling rds.logical_replication for creation of blue/green deployment for mandatory upgrade from R4 to R5 Maria

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