Azure Hyperscale (i.e Citus) (now Azure cosmosDB) to stop support for Posgresql 11 in Nov'23 - what this means for customers like us ?

Question

Hi,

We are customer of Azure Hyperscale (Citus) DB for postgresql and currently using postgresql 11 under the hood. We are informed by Microsoft that support for Hyperscale on postgresql 11 will be stopped in Nov'23 and we need to upgrade to postgresql 15 for hyperscale.

We have been in talks with Microsoft folks however there is no clarity and ambiguous opinions on what does stopping support means for customers like us.

Can we get official statement on what does stopping support for Hyperscale on postgresql 11 means?

Does this mean the OS level patches won't be applied on those systems, or microsoft will not get involved on any DB issues that arise on those systems or microsoft will stop development of any new feature only however will continue to support any issues that may arise on existing systems that are already being used by customers?

Answer 1

@Deole, Pushkar (Pushkar) Thank you for reaching out.

My understanding is that you need clarification on what stopping support for Hyperscale on PostgreSQL 11 means.

• You will be able to create and use your PostgreSQL 11 servers until the date without any restrictions.

You may continue to run the retired version in Azure Database for PostgreSQL. However, note the following restrictions after the retirement date for each PostgreSQL database version:

• As the community will not be releasing any further bug fixes or security fixes, Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL will not patch the retired database engine for any bugs or security issues, or otherwise take security measures with regard to the retired database engine. You may experience security vulnerabilities or other issues as a result. However, Azure will continue to perform periodic maintenance and patching for the host, OS, containers, and any other service-related components.
• If any support issue you may experience relates to the PostgreSQL engine itself, as the community no longer provides the patches, we may not be able to provide you with support. In such cases, you will have to upgrade your database to one of the supported versions.
• You will not be able to create new database servers for the retired version. However, you will be able to perform point-in-time recoveries and create read replicas for your existing servers.
• New service capabilities developed by Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL may only be available to supported database server versions.
• Uptime SLAs will apply solely to Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL service-related issues and not to any downtime caused by database engine-related bugs.
• In the extreme event of a serious threat to the service caused by the PostgreSQL database engine vulnerability identified in the retired database version, Azure may choose to stop your database server to secure the service. In such case, you will be notified to upgrade the server before bringing the server online.

Read more https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/postgresql/reference-versions

I hope this information helps. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Oury