Posted On: Jul 16, 2020
AWS Systems Manager now supports scheduling of maintenance tasks, such as applying patches, offset from a specific day in a specific week of the month. This enables IT operators to specify the number of days to wait before executing a maintenance window.
For example, you can now set up a recurring schedule to automatically apply patches on the Sunday following Microsoft’s patch Tuesday, which currently falls on the second Tuesday of each month. Simply add an offset of five days following patch Tuesday. To add the offset, create a new maintenance window or edit an existing one via the Systems Manager console, AWS CLI, or CloudFormation templates, and specify the schedule as a time-based entry called a cron expression.
This feature is available in all AWS Regions where AWS Systems Manager is offered. For more details about this feature, see an example on how to specify the number of schedule offset days for a maintenance window and the AWS CLI create-maintenance-window documentation. To learn more about AWS Systems Manager maintenance windows, visit the AWS Systems Manager Product Page.