Preparing for PostgreSQL 9.6 end of life

[Rachel Robins]

Hi everyone

Just wanted to remind everyone that the final release of PostgreSQL 9.6 will be in November 2021.  See PostgreSQL Versioning Policy.

Database end of life can be a challenge and upgrading Confluence requires some planning, so we wanted to provide some suggested pathways for upgrading your database. We strongly recommend you keep your database up to date, so that you continue to have access to security fixes. 

Supported databases

Here's a summary of the PostgreSQL versions that are supported for each Confluence Data Center and Server version

Confluence	6.3 to 7.2	7.3 to 7.12	7.12 to 7.13	7.14
PostgreSQL 9.6	supported	supported	supported	not supported
PostgreSQL 10	not supported	supported	supported	supported
PostgreSQL 11	not supported	not supported	supported	supported

For detailed end of support information, see End of Support Announcements for Confluence.

Upgrade pathways

There are number of different pathways. Here's a few suggested options.  

If you're running Confluence 7.2 or earlier you can either:

• Upgrade to Confluence 7.4 LTS, then upgrade your database to PostgreSQL 10, or
• Upgrade to Confluence 7.12, then upgrade your database to PostgreSQL 10 or 11, or
• Upgrade to Confluence 7.13 LTS once it is available, then upgrade your database to PostgreSQL 10 or 11. 

If you're running Confluence 7.3 or later you can either:

• Upgrade your database to PostgreSQL 10, which is supported from Confluence 7.3 onwards,  or
• Upgrade to Confluence 7.12, then upgrade your database to PostgreSQL 10 or 11, or
• Upgrade to Confluence 7.13 LTS once it is available, then upgrade your database to PostgreSQL 10 or 11. 

We're working towards adding support for PostgreSQL 12, but this won't be in time for Confluence 7.13 LTS.  

Upgrade resources

We strongly recommend using a staging environment to test your upgrade from end to end, before upgrading in production. 

Refer to the following documentation to learn how to upgrade you database:

• PostgreSQL 10 upgrade guide - PostgreSQL documentation
• PostgreSQL 11 upgrade guide - PostgreSQL documentation
• Upgrading the PostgreSQL DB engine for Amazon RDS - AWS documentation
• Upgrade your PostgreSQL database using dump and restore - Azure documentation

If you run PostgreSQL 9.6 on an Amazon RDS instance, you should consider planning to upgrade prior to the end of life date, to avoid being automatically upgraded to the latest PostgreSQL version, as happened when PostrgeSQL 9.5 reached end of life.  See Manually upgrading the PostgreSQL version of your Amazon RDS database from 9.5 to 9.6 to see what was involved last time. 

I hope you find this info helpful, and it helps you plan your next steps. 

Rachel
Confluence Data Center and Server team