Amazon RDS for MySQL: MySQL 8.0 end of RDS Extended Support

31 Jul 2029 is the RDS end of Extended Support date that AWS lists for MySQL 8.0. AWS states that once the RDS Extended Support period of a major engine version is over, Amazon RDS automatically upgrades the major engine version of a database not upgraded to a supported version. The pages do not state which version that automatic upgrade targets, or how soon after the end of the period it runs.

• Major version upgrades can contain database changes that are not backward-compatible with existing applications.
• A completed upgrade cannot be reverted to the previous engine version.
• Minor versions can reach end of Extended Support earlier.
• RDS Extended Support is a paid offering up to that date: see Amazon RDS Extended Support charges.

1. Test the upgrade first: create a DB snapshot of the DB instance, restore it to a new DB instance, and start a version upgrade on that new instance.
2. Find the valid upgrade targets for the DB instance in the AWS Management Console or with the aws rds describe-db-engine-versions AWS CLI command. AWS lists the supported major version upgrades on its MySQL on Amazon RDS versions page.
3. If the DB instance uses read replicas, upgrade all of the read replicas before the source instance.
4. Start the major version upgrade by modifying the DB instance, after following Major version upgrades for RDS for MySQL.
5. Downtime for the major version upgrade can be reduced with a blue/green deployment: Using Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployments for database updates.
6. Enrollment in RDS Extended Support ends the day an upgrade completes to an engine version that is still under RDS standard support. An upgrade to a version that is itself under RDS Extended Support does not end it: check the support dates of the target version in Supported MySQL major versions on Amazon RDS.