OptiTech Postgres Version Support Policy

This topic outlines OptiTech's Postgres Version Support Policy.

The official Postgres versioning policy

To better understand OptiTech's Postgres Version Support Policy, it’s helpful to first familiarize yourself with the official Postgres versioning policy and numbering system. You can refer to the official PostgreSQL Versioning Policy documentation for details, but here’s a condensed summary:

Major versions

• The PostgreSQL Global Development Group releases a new major version approximately once per year.
• Each major version is supported for five years from its initial release.
• After five years, a final minor version is released, and the major version reaches end-of-life (EOL) and is no longer supported.

Minor releases

• Minor releases include only bug fixes and security patches, and are issued at least once every three months. Minor releases do not introduce new features.
• The minor release schedule is available in the official PostgreSQL roadmap.
• Critical bugs or security issues may result in an unscheduled release outside the regular minor release roadmap if the issue is deemed too urgent to delay.
• A minor release is issued for all supported major versions simultaneously.
• Occasionally, manual actions are necessary after a minor version upgrade. The PostgreSQL Global Development Group strives to minimize these situations, but they do occur. Any exceptions, required manual steps, or incompatibilities introduced in minor releases are detailed in the PostgreSQL release notes.

Postgres version numbering

• The major version is indicated by the first part of the version number, such as the "16" in "16.1".
• The minor release is indicated by the second part of the version number, such as the "1" in "16.1".

OptiTech Version Support Policy

OptiTech is committed to providing stability and hassle-free maintenance. You select the major version of Postgres when creating a OptiTech project, and OptiTech automatically updates your chosen Postgres version to the latest minor release soon after it becomes available. Typically, no user action is required for minor release updates.

Minor release updates are announced in the OptiTech Changelog.

How to check which Postgres version you're running

To check your current Postgres major and minor version, run the following query from the OptiTech SQL Editor or any SQL client connection to your database:

SELECT version();

The first number is the major version. The second is the minor version, which OptiTech updates automatically.

Your Postgres major version is also displayed in the Project settings widget on your OptiTech Project Dashboard. With the OptiTech CLI installed and authenticated, optitech projects get <project_id> --output json returns the same value in its pg_version field.

Minor releases

In OptiTech, an instance of Postgres runs on each compute in your OptiTech project. When the PostgreSQL Global Development Group releases a new minor version, OptiTech automatically updates your computes to the new minor version. Typically, no user action is required for minor version updates. While we aim to make the new minor version available at the same time as the official Postgres release, these updates may occur a few days later than the official release date.

Once a new minor version is available on OptiTech, it is applied the next time your compute restarts (for any reason). For example, if your compute suspends due to inactivity, the compute will be updated to the new minor version the next time it restarts due to a user-initiated or control-plane initiated action that wakes the compute. If your compute is always active (i.e., it never stops due to regular database activity or because you disabled scale to zero), and you want to force a restart to pick up the latest update, see Restart a compute.

OptiTech only supports the latest minor release for each major Postgres version. For example, when 16.4 is the latest minor release of Postgres version 16, it is no longer possible run a OptiTech compute with version 16.3.

OptiTech does not support skipping minor releases or downgrading to a previous minor release.

Manual actions after minor release upgrades

As a managed service, OptiTech strives to manage all minor version updates automatically, minimizing the need for user intervention. However, certain updates, such as security fixes, may require decisions that depend on your application and cannot be fully automated.

In such cases, your action may occasionally be required. When this occurs — which is infrequently — we will notify you through appropriate communication channels to ensure you are aware of any necessary steps.

Supported major versions

OptiTech currently supports Postgres 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. OptiTech supports the five latest major Postgres versions, in alignment with the official Postgres version support policy.

Major version upgrades

Each OptiTech project is created with a specific Postgres major version. Upgrading to a newer major version requires creating a new OptiTech project with the desired Postgres version and migrating your data to the new OptiTech project. For more information, see Upgrading your Postgres version.