# Upgrade and Maintenance

<code class="expression">space.vars.ionos\_cloud</code> updates and patches your database cluster to achieve high standards of functionality and security. This includes minor patches for MariaDB and patches for the underlying operating system. Generally, these updates are unnoticeable and do not interrupt your operation. However, occasionally, <code class="expression">space.vars.ionos\_cloud</code> restarts your MariaDB instance to allow the changes to take effect.

## Prerequisites

* Prepare for a downtime during the version upgrade.
* Ensure the database cluster has enough available storage. While the upgrade is space-efficient (because it does not copy the data directory), some temporary data is written to the disk.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Note:** Updates to a new minor version are always backward compatible. Such updates occur during the maintenance window with no additional actions from the user.
{% endhint %}

Currently, MariaDB only supports minor upgrades. <code class="expression">space.vars.ionos\_cloud</code> replaces the `mariadb` executable binaries with those from a newer version, followed by the execution of the `mariadb-upgrade` command.

The process replicates data from the old version to the new version and the database switches to the new version. For more information about the upgrade process, refer to the [<mark style="color:blue;">MariaDB Documentation</mark>](https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb-upgrade/).

Any changes that could cause service interruptions, such as version upgrades, are performed during a one-hour weekly maintenance window, which may result in brief connection interruptions. We recommend reconnecting to resume and complete any transactions that may have been affected during the maintenance window. For more information about how to configure maintenance windows for MariaDB, see [<mark style="color:blue;">Set Up a MariaDB Cluster</mark>](/cloud/databases/mariadb/dcd-how-tos/set-up-mariadb-cluster.md).

{% hint style="info" %}
**Note:** Maintenance operations are initiated during the scheduled one-hour weekly maintenance window, but the duration may extend depending on the task. For example, tasks such as data replication may require additional time.
{% endhint %}


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