[Announcement] Extending end-of-life Process for Amazon RDS for MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is extending the end-of-life process for MariaDB major versions 10.0 and 10.1. Beginning March 22, 2021 00:00:01 UTC, Amazon RDS will automatically upgrade MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 instances to MariaDB 10.2 during regular maintenance windows, and will upgrade all remaining MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 instances to MariaDB 10.2 on May 18, 2021 00:00:01 UTC.

We previously communicated [1] we would begin upgrades starting February 9, 2021, and upgrade remaining instances on March 9, 2021. We have decided to extend the end-of-life process for all customers based on the volume of customer extension requests, and the opportunity to improve the upgrade experience.

We strongly encourage customers to upgrade their MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 instances to MariaDB 10.2 or greater as soon as possible, ahead of this end-of-life schedule. The MariaDB community discontinued support for MariaDB 10.0 on March 31, 2019 and for MariaDB 10.1 on October 17, 2020 [2]. Newer MariaDB versions include fixes to software defects in earlier versions, and major innovations like improved Oracle compatibility, support for temporal data processing, and improved DDL and authentication capabilities [3][4].

The following is a summary of important milestones on the updated end-of-life schedule for MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1:
• Now through March 22, 2021 00:00:01 UTC

• Customers can no longer create new RDS instances using MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 from the AWS Console or CLI. We removed this functionality December 3, 2020.
• Customers can initiate upgrades of Amazon RDS for MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 instances to MariaDB 10.2, 10.3, or 10.4 at any time.
• Customers can continue to restore MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 snapshots, and create read replicas with versions 10.0 and 10.1 until March 22, 2021.

• March 22, 2021 00:00:01 UTC

• RDS will automatically upgrade MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 instances to version 10.2 during a scheduled maintenance window after March 22, 2021.
• When customers restore MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 database snapshots, Amazon RDS will automatically upgrade the restored database to MariaDB 10.2.

• May 18, 2021 00:00:01 UTC

• RDS will begin automatically upgrading remaining MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 instances to version 10.2, whether or not they are in a maintenance window.

To avoid any unplanned unavailability outside your maintenance window, we recommend that you first test the upgrade process using a database snapshot. To learn more about upgrading MariaDB major versions in RDS, review the Upgrading Database Versions page [5]. Another common technique for reducing downtime from version upgrades is described in this AWS blog post [6].

Should you have any questions or concerns, the AWS Support Team is available on the community forums and via Premium Support [7].

References
[1] https://forums.aws.amazon.com/ann.jspa?annID=8174
[2] https://mariadb.org/about/#maintenance-policy
[3] https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/10/amazon-rds-now-supports-mariadb-10\_3/
[4] https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/04/amazon-rds-now-supports-mariadb-10-4/
[5] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER\_UpgradeDBInstance.Upgrading.html#USER\_UpgradeDBInstance.Upgrading.Manual
[6] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/best-practices-for-using-a-mysql-read-replica-to-upgrade-an-amazon-rds-for-mysql-database/
[7] http://aws.amazon.com/support