Posted On: Jan 11, 2021

Starting today, you can perform an in-place upgrade of your Amazon Aurora database cluster from MySQL major version 5.6 to 5.7. Instead of backing up and restoring the database to the new version, you can upgrade with just a few clicks in the Amazon RDS Management Console or by using the AWS SDK or CLI. 

Aurora MySQL 5.7 offers enhancements such as JSON support, spatial indexes, and generated columns. Aurora’s native implementation of spatial indexing also can deliver >20x better write performance and >10x better read performance than MySQL 5.7 for spatial datasets. 

To upgrade to Aurora MySQL 5.7, select the "Modify" option on the AWS Management Console corresponding to the database instance you want to upgrade, choose the version of Aurora MySQL 5.7 you want to upgrade to, and proceed with the wizard. The upgrade may be applied immediately (if you select the "Apply Immediately" option), or during your next maintenance window (by default). Please note that in either case, your database cluster will be unavailable during the upgrade and your database instances will be restarted. Please review the Aurora documentation to learn more. 

Amazon Aurora combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. It provides up to five times better throughput than standard MySQL together with increased scalability, durability, and security.