Posted On: Aug 30, 2023

Starting today, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Oracle supports the auto-upgrade of Oracle time zone files for DB instances on the multitenant container database (CDB) architecture running in single-tenant configuration in the Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD, and the Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet. The Oracle time zone file auto-upgrade feature provides an automated way to upgrade the daylight savings time (DST) time zone file version in the DB instance.

Previously, customers observing time zones with TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data types in their databases and wishing to upgrade to the latest time zone definitions had to provision a new DB instance and migrate their data manually. These customers can now benefit from this feature by automating the upgrade of their current time zone file version to the latest available version in the DB instance.

To enable the Oracle time zone file auto-upgrade feature in the RDS Console, add the TIMEZONE_FILE_AUTOUPGRADE option to the option group, and apply to a new or existing DB instance. Alternatively, in the Amazon CLI, use the add-option-to-option-group command to add the TIMEZONE_FILE_AUTOUPGRADE option.

For more information, see the time zone file auto-upgrade documentation. See Amazon RDS for Oracle Pricing for up-to-date pricing of instances, storage, data transfer, and regional availability.