Upgrade management for Amazon RDS Db2 instances

To see the current list of supported Db2 minor versions on RDS, use one of the following commands:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions --engine db2-se
aws rds describe-db-engine-versions --engine db2-ae

Amazon RDS also supports upgrade rollout policy to manage automatic minor version upgrades across multiple database resources and AWS accounts. For more information, see Using AWS Organizations upgrade rollout policy for automatic minor version upgrades.

You can specify any currently supported Db2 version when creating a new DB instance. You can specify the major version (such as Db2 11.5) and any supported minor version for the specified major version. If no version is specified, Amazon RDS defaults to a supported version, typically the most recent version. If a major version is specified but a minor version is not, Amazon RDS defaults to a recent release of the major version that you have specified. To see a list of supported versions, as well as defaults for newly created DB instances, use the describe-db-engine-versions AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) command.

For example, to list the supported engine versions for Amazon RDS for Db2, run the following AWS CLI command. Replace region with your AWS Region.

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions \
    --filters Name=engine,Values=db2-ae,db2-se \
    --query "DBEngineVersions[].{Engine:Engine, EngineVersion:EngineVersion, DBParameterGroupFamily:DBParameterGroupFamily}" \
    --region region

For Windows:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions ^
    --filters Name=engine,Values=db2-ae,db2-se ^
    --query "DBEngineVersions[].{Engine:Engine, EngineVersion:EngineVersion, DBParameterGroupFamily:DBParameterGroupFamily}" ^
    --region region

This command produces output similar to the following example:

[
    {
    "Engine": "db2-ae",
    "EngineVersion": "11.5.9.0.sb00000000.r1",
    "DBParameterGroupFamily": "db2-ae-11.5"
    },
    {
    "Engine": "db2-se",
    "EngineVersion": "11.5.9.0.sb00000000.r1",
    "DBParameterGroupFamily": "db2-se-11.5"
    }
]

The default Db2 version might vary by AWS Region. To create a DB instance with a specific minor version, specify the minor version during DB instance creation. You can determine the default version for an AWS Region for db2-ae and db2-se database engines by running the describe-db-engine-versions command. The following example returns the default version for db2-ae in US East (N. Virginia).

For Linux, macOS, or Unix:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions \
    --default-only --engine db2-ae \
    --query "DBEngineVersions[].{Engine:Engine, EngineVersion:EngineVersion, DBParameterGroupFamily:DBParameterGroupFamily}" \
    --region us-east-1

For Windows:

aws rds describe-db-engine-versions ^
    --default-only --engine db2-ae ^
    --query "DBEngineVersions[].{Engine:Engine, EngineVersion:EngineVersion, DBParameterGroupFamily:DBParameterGroupFamily}" ^
    --region us-east-1

This command produces output similar to the following example:

[
    {
    "Engine": "db2-ae",
    "EngineVersion": "11.5.9.0.sb00000000.r1",
    "DBParameterGroupFamily": "db2-ae-11.5"
    }
]

With Amazon RDS, you control when to upgrade your Db2 instance to a new major version supported by Amazon RDS. You can maintain compatibility with specific Db2 versions, test new versions with your application before deploying in production, and perform major version upgrades at times that best fit your schedule.

When automatic minor version upgrade is enabled, Amazon RDS automatically upgrades your DB instances to new Db2 minor versions as they are supported by Amazon RDS. This patching occurs during your scheduled maintenance window. You can modify a DB instance to enable or disable automatic minor version upgrades.

Except for Db2 versions 11.5.9.1 and 11.5.10.0, automatic upgrades to new Db2 minor version includes automatic upgrades to new builds and revisions. For 11.5.9.1 and 11.5.10.0, manually upgrade minor versions.

If you opt out of automatically scheduled upgrades, you can manually upgrade to a supported minor version release by following the same procedure as you would for a major version update. For information, see Upgrading a DB instance engine version.