Upgrading your database(s) to MySQL 5.7

Between October 2020 and January 2021, Acquia will begin upgrading the version of Percona MySQL running on your non-production and production database(s) to MySQL 5.7.  This upgrade will provide performance improvements and increased security for your application

Upgrading your database layer only needs to be completed once per database or database pair. For Acquia Cloud Professional customers, this will mean one upgrade window per application instance, slated in the Fourth quarter of 2020.  For Acquia Cloud Enterprise customers, this will mean two upgrade windows per application: one for your non-production databases, and one for your application's production database(s).

Product status

Acquia Cloud Enterprise

We will provide maintenance windows for Acquia Cloud Enterprise customers' databases for non-production environments prior to providing maintenance windows for databases for your production application. This will give you the opportunity to confirm your non-production environments operate as anticipated.

Acquia Cloud Site Factory

We will coordinate directly with Acquia Cloud Site Factory customers to find appropriate upgrade windows for your Site Factories during the Fourth quarter of 2020.

Acquia Cloud Professional

Acquia Cloud Professional customers will be contacted with further instructions regarding their upgrades soon, which are slated in the Fourth quarter of 2020.

Frequently Asked Questions about the MySQL 5.7 upgrade

Why is this happening?

MySQL 5.7 will improve the performance and security for your applications.  Additionally, this upgrade will support an upcoming OS upgrade to provide additional performance and security gains.

Will my website’s behavior change after the upgrade?

We do not expect any website behavior changes. Your website will keep using exactly the same version of both PHP and Ubuntu after the upgrade as it did before the upgrade. 

Important
Is there any way to change the upgrade deadline or keep my site on its current version of MySQL?

Sorry, no. As a managed platform, you count on Acquia to maintain a stable and secure environment for your applications. Due to the security improvements included in MySQL 5.7, this upgrade is required to meet a variety of compliance requirements many customers need. Deferring this maintenance or staying on an old version of MySQL is not an option.

Is there any action required on my part?

No, however once your non-production environments have been upgraded Acquia recommends testing in order to catch any issues caused by custom code or drupal modules prior to your production upgrade.
 

Will there be any downtime for my non-production environments?

For Acquia Cloud Enterprise applications with high-availability non-production environments, up to five minutes of downtime is anticipated for your non-production environments during this upgrade. For Acquia Cloud Enterprise applications without high-availability non-production environments, these environments will experience downtime for 30 to 60 minutes during the upgrade.

For Acquia Cloud Professional websites, yes, you should expect the upgrade process to require 30 to 60 minutes of dev and staging environment downtime during this upgrade.

For Acquia Cloud Site Factory applications, yes, there will be a brief downtime of up to five minutes for high-availability non-production environments. For single- tier non-production environments applications will experience downtime for 10 to 30 minutes during the upgrade.

Will there be any downtime for my production application?

For Acquia Cloud Enterprise websites, yes, there will be a brief downtime of up to five minutes. In order to minimize the impact to your users, we will schedule your upgrade during your instance's regional outside normal business hours (11pm-7am).

For Acquia Cloud Professional application, yes, you should expect the upgrade process to require 30 to 60 minutes of downtime during this upgrade.

For Acquia Cloud Site Factory applications, yes, This maintenance will require a failover and failback for each database pair during the upgrade, during which your site will experience up to five minutes of downtime. In order to minimize the impact to your users, we will schedule your upgrade during your instance's regional outside normal business hours (11pm-7am).

Why is there downtime for high-availability applications?

Upgrading the database involves upgrading the secondary database, silently failing over to it, upgrading the primary database, then silently failing back. There will be a brief window of time where your database pair will be running different versions of MySQL. If data tried to sync between them, there is a small chance (less than one out of  >100 pairs) that data degradation or loss could occur. By forcing a brief period of downtime during the failover, we can ensure this data impairment will not occur.

How will I know when maintenance related to my website is being performed?

All customers will be ticketed prior to their application undergoing maintenance within our standard two business day notification window.

Are there other major upgrades coming soon?

For more information on upcoming maintenance upgrades, see our Software end-of-life schedule.

I have some additional questions and concerns. Who can I contact?

If you have any questions about this or any other maintenance, you can Contact the Acquia Support team by logging in to https://accounts.acquia.com/ and visiting the Acquia Help Center.