Upgrade Postgres

Major Version upgrades

Crunchy Bridge allows you schedule your own Postgres Major version upgrade. See the Postgres Upgrade section of the Cluster Management page for details about the process itself.

Important Notes:

  • Read Replicas are upgraded after the primary completes. Replicas will remain available in a stale state while their upgrades are being prepared.
  • We recommend testing your Postgres Major version upgrade with a database fork. This will allow you to check compatibility with your applications and clients, and to determine how long the upgrade process will take.

Upgrade process

You can initiate the upgrade process by choosing Upgrade Postgres from the Cluster Actions menu and selecting the Postgres version to which you want to upgrade:

Once you click "Upgrade Cluster" you've scheduled the Postgres upgrade. You can also schedule a Postgres upgrade for a cluster using cb upgrade on the CLI or through the Cluster Upgrade API endpoint.

As soon as the upgrade is scheduled, we will immediately begin preparing a standby for you. The time it takes to prepare the standby is relative to the data size of the database.

Assuming the standby is ready before the cluster's next maintenance window begins, we will run the upgrade during the maintenance window. Postgres Major version upgrades typically take a few minutes, however the time it takes to upgrade Postgres is relative to the number of objects in each database.

Please review the Postgres Upgrade section of the Cluster Management page for additional details about the process.

Preparing for the upgrade

We strongly recommend preparing for a Postgres Major version upgrade by testing the process on a fork of the target cluster. You can create a fork from the Actions menu in Cluster Overview page in the dashboard, by using cb create --fork on the CLI, or using the Cluster Fork API endpoint.

Testing the upgrade on a fork will allow you to:

  • Verify compatibility in your applications and clients
  • Gauge the timing of both replica creation and the upgrade process

Info

When testing, ensure that the maintenance window on your fork remains unset. This will allow the upgrade operation will proceed as soon as possible, rather than waiting for a certain window.

Alternative methods

It will require some downtime for Crunchy Bridge to perform a Postgres Major version upgrade for you. If you've tested the upgrade using a cluster fork, you'll have a good sense of how much time it will actually take.

If you require a close-to-zero downtime upgrade, read our Online Upgrades in Postgres blog post for details on how you might achieve it using logical replication rather than the built-in Upgrade operation.

Minor Version upgrades

Crunchy Bridge will automatically upgrade your database with new minor versions of Postgres over time.

With each Postgres release we examine all security related issues and bugs. For any deemed critical we will prioritize your upgrade to ensure your data is safe. If an emergency update is required we'll perform that update during your maintenance window.

For non-critical fixes we gradually update databases by one of the following: