Announcing Extended Support for Azure Database for MySQL

As part of our ongoing commitment to customer success and operational continuity, we are introducing Extended Support for Azure Database for MySQL as a paid offering designed to help customers continue running workloads on older MySQL versions with confidence, even after community support ends.

Why Extended Support?

We initially planned to retire support for MySQL 5.7 in Azure by September 2025, aligning with the community’s end-of-life (EOL) timeline. However, after engaging with many of our customers, we learned that a significant number of users prefer to remain on MySQL 5.7 due to application dependencies and stability considerations. At the same time, MySQL 8.0 is also approaching its community EOL in 2026.

To support customers through these transitions, we’re launching Extended Support as a paid feature to provide our customers with additional time and flexibility to plan and execute upgrades, without compromising on security, reliability, or support.

What’s Included in Extended Support?

With Extended Support, customers will continue to receive:

• SLA-backed availability: Your MySQL servers remain covered by Azure’s enterprise-grade SLA.
• Security updates: We will continue to deliver critical security patches to help protect your workloads.
• Technical support: Azure support engineers will remain available to assist with troubleshooting and operational issues.

Seamless and Predictable Experience

• Automatic enrollment: Once a MySQL version reaches community EOL, Azure-managed servers running that version will automatically enter Extended Support—no action is required from customers.
• Grace period: Billing for Extended Support will begin one month after the community EOL date, giving customers time to plan.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing: Extended Support will be billed per vCore per hour, with no upfront commitment.
• Automatic exit: Once a server is upgraded to a supported community version, it will automatically exit Extended Support and billing will stop.

Pricing and Availability

The pricing for Extended Support will be announced by Q3 2025 and will be available via the Azure pricing calculator at that time.

Support Timeline for MySQL 5.7 and 8.0

Starting with MySQL 5.7, all future MySQL versions hosted on Azure will follow this Extended Support model after their respective community EOL dates. Please refer to our Version Support Policy | Microsoft Learn for more information.

How to Upgrade

If you prefer not to enroll in Extended Support, you can upgrade your Azure Database for MySQL server to a supported major version using one of the following in-place upgrade options:

1. In-Place upgrade on the same instance
   Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server supports in-place major version upgrades. You can initiate the upgrade directly from the Azure portal, CLI, or ARM templates. This method preserves your server configuration, connection strings, and data, minimizing operational overhead.
2. Validate the upgrade before applying to production
   To ensure a smooth upgrade experience, you can validate the upgrade using one of the following approaches:

• • Replica-Based validation:
    Create a read replica of your production server, perform an in-place upgrade on the replica, and run validation tests. Once confirmed, you can either promote the replica or proceed with upgrading the primary server.
  • PITR-Based validation:
    Use point-in-time restore (PITR) to create a new server from a recent backup of your production instance. Perform the upgrade on the restored server and validate your application behavior and performance before upgrading the production server.

Best Practices

• • Always back up your data before initiating an upgrade.
  • Review MySQL release notes for deprecated features and behavior changes.
  • Monitor your application closely after the upgrade to ensure stability.

For detailed instructions, refer to Major Version Upgrade - Azure Database for MySQL | Microsoft Learn