Upgrade and Maintenance

PostgreSQL upgrades

IONOS Cloud performs regular updates and patches on your PostgreSQL database cluster to maintain security and stability. These updates include minor PostgreSQL patches and operating system updates.

Most updates apply without service interruption. In some cases, a brief restart of the PostgreSQL instance is necessary for the changes to take effect. Any such restarts occur only during the scheduled weekly four-hour maintenance window.

When your cluster only contains one replica, you might experience a short downtime during this maintenance window, while your database instance is being updated. In a replicated cluster, we only update standbys, but we might perform a switchover to change the leader node. For more information, see Setting Maintenance Windows.

To upgrade from an earlier PostgreSQL release, data must be migrated using pg_dumpall, pg_upgrade, or logical replication.

Considerations: Updates to a new minor version are always backward compatible. Such updates are done during the maintenance window with no additional actions from the user side.

Major version upgrades

Caution: Major changes of the PostgreSQL version are irreversible and can fail. You should read the official migration guide and test major version upgrades with an appropriate development cluster first.

Prerequisites

• Test the upgrade on the development cluster with similar or the same data by creating a new database cluster as a clone of your existing cluster.

• Prepare for a downtime during the major version upgrade.

• Ensure the database cluster has enough available storage. While the upgrade is space-efficient and does not copy the data directory, some temporary data is written to disk.

Before upgrading to major PostgreSQL versions, verify and ensure that the migration does not impact your operations. IONOS Cloud does not assume responsibility for your data or utilized functionality during this process.

Note: According to the official PostgreSQL Documentation, new major versions can introduce user-visible incompatibilities that may require application changes.

Supported versions

Starting with version 10, PostgreSQL moved to a yearly release schedule, where each major version is supported for 5 years after initial release. For more information, refer to the PostgreSQL Documentation. We strive to support new versions as soon as possible.

Note: PostgreSQL 16 version support is now available. To learn about upgrading to this version, see PostgreSQL 16 Upgrade Management.