Planned maintenance for Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Your Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server instance periodically undergoes maintenance operations to help keep your managed database secure, stable, and up to date. Maintenance can include platform updates, operating system updates, security patches, and PostgreSQL engine updates.

Maintenance window

You can schedule maintenance during a specific day of the week, and a time window within that day. Or you can let the system choose a day and a time window for you automatically.

The system sends maintenance notifications 5 calendar days in advance, so that you have ample time to prepare. The system also informs you about when maintenance starts and when it successfully finishes.

You can receive notifications about upcoming scheduled maintenance through:

• Email to a specific address.
• Email to an Azure Resource Manager role.
• Text message to mobile devices.
• Push notification to an Azure app.
• Voice message.

When you're specifying preferences for the maintenance schedule, you can choose between a custom schedule and a system managed schedule. If you opt for a custom schedule, you can specify a day of the week and a time window. But if you select a system managed schedule, the system chooses a day for you. And within that day, it chooses a one hour time window, between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM in your server region's time. You can configure different maintenance schedules for each of your Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server instance.

You can update your scheduled maintenance settings at any time. If maintenance is scheduled for your Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server instance and you update your scheduled maintenance preferences, the current rollout isn't reprogrammed. It proceeds at the day and time it was scheduled already. Changes to scheduled maintenance settings become effective upon successful completion of the next scheduled maintenance.

System-managed Windows (SMW) vs. Custom Maintenance Windows (CMW)

You can define a system-managed schedule or a custom schedule for each Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server instance in your Azure subscription:

• With a system-managed schedule, the system chooses any one hour window between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM in your server region's time.
• With a custom schedule, you can specify your maintenance window for the server, by choosing the day of the week and the start time of a one hour time window.

Scheduled maintenance occurs first on servers that are configured with system managed schedules. Servers with custom schedules follow after, at least, seven days within a region. To receive early updates for development and test servers, use a system-managed schedule. This schedule choice allows early testing and issue resolution, before updates reach production servers with custom schedules.

Updates for custom-schedule servers begin seven days later, during a defined maintenance window. After you're notified, you can't defer updates. We advise that you use custom schedules for production environments only.

In rare cases, the system can cancel some maintenance events, or some events can fail to finish successfully. If an update fails, the process is rolled back, and your server restored to the previous version of the binaries. The server might still restart during the maintenance window.

If an update is canceled or failed, the system generates a notification about the canceled or failed maintenance event. The next attempt to perform maintenance is scheduled according to your current schedule settings, and you receive a notification about it 5 calendar days in advance.

Considerations and limitations for Planned Maintenance

Some considerations to keep in mind during monthly planned maintenance:

• Monthly maintenance is impactful and they involve some downtime.
• Downtime depends on the transactional load on the server at the time of maintenance.
• Once maintenance is scheduled, any changes to the maintenance settings will apply only to the next maintenance cycle, not the current one.

View Upcoming Maintenance

You can view upcoming maintenance events for your flexible server before maintenance begins. This visibility helps you understand when maintenance is scheduled, whether the event can be rescheduled, and what type of update is planned.

View upcoming maintenance by using the Azure portal. Support for Azure CLI, or REST API is in-work.

When an upcoming maintenance event is available, you can view details such as:

• The next scheduled maintenance event
• Estimated start time
• Estimated end time
• Maintenance type
• Maintenance status
• Whether the event is eligible for rescheduling
• The deadline for rescheduling, when applicable

Reschedule Planned Maintenance to a Future Date

For production workloads, you might need to avoid maintenance during business-critical periods, such as peak traffic hours, release windows, migrations, financial close, or seasonal events. When an upcoming maintenance event is eligible for rescheduling, you can move the maintenance to a later eligible time that better aligns with your workload needs.

You can reschedule maintenance by using the Azure portal. Support for Azure CLI, or REST API is in-work.

What rescheduling maintenance provides

Rescheduling maintenance lets you:

• View upcoming maintenance for your server.
• Choose a future eligible maintenance date and time.
• Defer maintenance by up to 14 days from the initially planned maintenance date.
• Avoid maintenance during high-risk business periods.
• Keep visibility into the updated maintenance schedule.

Prerequisites

To reschedule maintenance, you need:

• An Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server.
• An upcoming maintenance event that is eligible for rescheduling.
• A server using a custom managed maintenance window.
• A supported compute tier.

Supported servers

Rescheduling maintenance is supported for servers in the following compute tiers:

• General Purpose
• Memory Optimized

Rescheduling maintenance isn't supported for Burstable compute tier servers.

Rescheduling rules and limitations

Before you reschedule maintenance, review the following rules:

• The Reschedule action is available only when a maintenance event is scheduled.
• The maintenance event must be eligible for rescheduling.
• Only eligible future slots are selectable.
• The new maintenance time must be within the permitted reschedule window.
• Maintenance can be rescheduled by up to 14 days from the initially notified schedule date.
• Rescheduling is unavailable starting 15 minutes before the initially scheduled maintenance time.
• You can update the rescheduled time more than once, as long as maintenance hasn't entered the preparation state and the new time is within the allowed reschedule window.

Apply Maintenance On-Demand

When an upcoming maintenance event is available, you can apply maintenance immediately instead of waiting for the scheduled maintenance window. This option gives you more control over when maintenance starts and helps you apply updates during a time that is safe for your workload.

You can apply maintenance on demand by using the Azure portal. Support for Azure CLI, or REST API is in-work.

What apply maintenance on demand provides

Apply maintenance on demand lets you:

• View an upcoming maintenance event.
• Start eligible maintenance immediately.
• Apply updates when your workload can tolerate a restart or brief disruption.
• Reduce the chance of maintenance starting during a less convenient scheduled time.
• Track maintenance status as it moves from scheduled to in progress and then completed.

Supported maintenance states

The Apply now action is available only when:

• An eligible maintenance event exists.
• The server isn't already in maintenance.
• The maintenance event is in the Scheduled or Rescheduled state.

After you confirm Apply now, the server enters the maintenance preparation workflow and the maintenance event transitions toward InProgress.

View Maintenance History

You can view maintenance history to review past maintenance events for your server. Maintenance history helps you understand when maintenance occurred, what type of maintenance was applied, and the final status of the event.

You can view maintenance history for your server using the Azure portal. Support for Azure CLI, or REST API is in-work.

What maintenance history provides

Maintenance history lets you:

• Review past maintenance events for your server.
• See when maintenance started and completed.
• View the maintenance type and status.
• Confirm whether a maintenance event completed successfully.
• Support operational reviews, incident investigations, and audit requirements.

Applying Maintenance on Stopped/Disabled Instances

If a PostgreSQL server is stopped during scheduled maintenance, the maintenance isn't applied immediately. Instead, the maintenance is applied when the server is restarted, either manually by the customer or automatically through the 7-day auto restart feature. A notification is sent to the customer indicating that maintenance couldn't be applied because the server is stopped and applies when the server is restarted.

Customers might notice a slight increase in restart time (5-8 minutes) when pending maintenance is applied, particularly during manual restarts.

Consolidated Maintenance Notifications

Customers running multiple Azure Databases for PostgreSQL servers may receive several separate notifications for the same planned maintenance event, making maintenance tracking more difficult. To reduce this overhead, Azure Database for PostgreSQL now consolidates planned maintenance notifications for multiple servers in the same region into a single notification. This helps reduce notification fatigue and makes it easier to track upcoming maintenance while maintaining visibility into impacted resources.

To view planned maintenance, select View in Azure Service Health within your maintenance notification email.

Next navigate to Planned Maintenance blade in Azure Service Health Portal and select the specific Azure Database for PostgreSQL notification.

The summary tab contains details of upcoming maintenance in a region including the region, impacted subscriptions, start and end time of the maintenance. The start and end times shown represent the duration of the planned maintenance for all impacted servers(s) in this region including yours. To view the servers in the subscription that have upcoming maintenance and their scheduled start and end times, select the impacted resources tab. To view the list of notable features, PostgreSQL version changes, improvements, and issue fixes contained in the maintenance upgrade select the maintenance release notes on the summary page.

The impacted resources tab lists each affected server in the subscription. For each resource, select More info to view details such as maintenance status, server specific scheduled maintenance start, and end times. To view the maintenance status, start and end time of all impacted servers, select Export to CSV on the Impacted Resources tab.

The exported .csv file includes each impacted server along with its maintenance status and scheduled maintenance start and end times. All times listed are in UTC.

Related content

• Configure scheduled maintenance
• Get notifications about upcoming maintenance
• Set up alerts for upcoming scheduled maintenance events