Amazon RDS for MySQL now supports rollback protection for database major version upgrades

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for MySQL now offers rollback protection for major version upgrades.

Major version database upgrades can be challenging in self-managed environments. Managing backups, monitoring the upgrade process, and restoring from backup manually in the case of issues can result in unanticipated downtime for self-managed databases.

For Amazon RDS for MySQL customers upgrading from MySQL 5.7 to MySQL 8.0, Amazon RDS introduced prechecks that identify potential issues before the upgrade begins, including both prechecks from MySQL and prechecks developed by the Amazon RDS team. Rollback protection extends the reliability of major version upgrades for RDS for MySQL instances beyond prechecks, and automatically reverts instances to a running state on MySQL 5.7 when upgrades to MySQL 8.0 cannot be completed. This automatic rollback process helps ensure minimal downtime in the case when upgrade issues occur, and is automatically enabled for all RDS MySQL customers.

To learn more about major version upgrades for MySQL on Amazon RDS please see the upgrading the MySQL DB engine section of the Amazon RDS user guide.