[Announcement] (DEPRECATED) Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for PostgreSQL 9.6 End-of-Life date is January 18, 2022

This is an outdated announcement. Please refer to the latest Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 end-of-life timeline here: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/ann.jspa?annID=9092

Amazon RDS is starting the end of life (EOL) process for PostgreSQL major version 9.6. We are doing this because the PostgreSQL community is planning to discontinue support for PostgreSQL 9.6 on November 11, 2021 [1].

To avoid availability impact during a time of the year when many customers' databases tend to experience their peak workload, Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 will reach EOL on January 18, 2022 00:00:01 AM UTC. While you will be able to run your RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 databases between community PostgreSQL 9.6 EOL (November 11, 2021) and RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 EOL (January 18, 2022), the databases will not receive any security patches during this extended availability period. We strongly recommend that you proactively upgrade your RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 databases to major version 12 or greater before community EOL. PostgreSQL 12 contains major innovations including JSON path queries per SQL/JSON specifications and pluggable table storage interface [2]. PostgreSQL 13 will introduce parallel processing of indexes with the VACUUM command and improved duplicate data handling by B-tree indexes [3]. Both versions contain numerous fixes to various software bugs in earlier versions of the database.

If you do not upgrade your databases before January 18, 2022, RDS will upgrade your PostgreSQL 9.6 databases to 12 during a scheduled maintenance window between January 18, 2022 00:00:01 UTC and February 22, 2022 00:00:01 UTC. On February 22, 2022 00:00:01 AM UTC, any PostgreSQL 9.6 databases that remain will be upgraded to version 12 regardless of whether the instances are in a maintenance window or not.

We recommend that you first upgrade to minor version 9.6.20 or greater and then upgrade directly to PostgreSQL 12 or greater so that you can skip intermediate major versions. You can initiate an upgrade of your database instance — either immediately or during your next maintenance window — to a newer version of PostgreSQL using the AWS Management Console or the AWS Command Line Interface. The upgrade process will shut down the database instance, perform the upgrade, and restart the database instance. The database instance may be restarted multiple times during the upgrade process. While major version upgrades typically complete within the standard maintenance window, the duration of the upgrade depends on the number of objects within the database. To avoid any unplanned unavailability outside your maintenance window, we recommend that you first take a snapshot of your database and test the upgrade to get an estimate of the upgrade duration. To learn more about upgrading PostgreSQL major versions in RDS, review the Upgrading Database Versions page [4].

We want to make you aware of the following additional milestones associated with upgrading databases that are reaching EOL.
Now through January 18, 2022 00:00:01 AM UTC - You can initiate upgrades of Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 instances to PostgreSQL 12 or greater at any time.
August 3, 2021 00:00:01 AM UTC - After this date and time, you cannot create new RDS instances with PostgreSQL major version 9.6 from either the AWS Console or the CLI.
January 18, 2022 00:00:01 AM UTC - Amazon RDS will automatically upgrade PostgreSQL 9.6 instances to version 12 within the earliest scheduled maintenance window that follows. After this date and time, restoration of Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 9.6 database snapshots will result in an automatic upgrade of the restored database to a still supported version at the time.
February 22 2022 00:00:01 AM UTC – Amazon RDS will automatically upgrade any remaining PostgreSQL 9.6 instances to version 12 whether or not they are in a maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns, the AWS Support Team is available on the community forums and via Premium Support [5].

References
[1] https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2019/11/postgresql-12-0-now-available-in-amazon-rds-database-preview-environment/
[3] https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/06/postgresql-13-beta-1-now-available-in-amazon-rds-database-preview-environment/
[4] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_UpgradeDBInstance.Upgrading.html#USER_UpgradeDBInstance.Upgrading.Manual
[5] http://aws.amazon.com/support