Upgrading Your Existing Aura 3.5 AuraDB Instance to Aura 4

This article covers converting your existing AuraDB Instance to use Neo4j 4. To import your community or enterprise edition Neo4j 3.x database into Aura 4, please see Importing your 3.x database into Aura.

With the release of Neo4j 4 for AuraDB, customers may wonder how they can start taking advantage of the new features that are available. Because 4 represents a major shift in how Neo4j operates, simply stopping a running AuraDB Instance and restarting as the new version is not sufficient. Instead, you will want to download an export of your AuraDB Instance and then import it into a new AuraDB Instance. This article will outline the steps to do so.

Before proceeding with this document, please review the following KB to check the breaking changes so your upgrade will be as smooth as possible: https://aura.support.neo4j.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058152433-How-to-prepare-for-migrating-from-Aura-3-to-Aura-4-

Exporting your data

To start, open your Aura console to the list of active AuraDB Instances. Click on the AuraDB Instance you want to upgrade, then on the Snapshots tab of the AuraDB Instance details page. Your most recent backup will be at the top of the list (some backups may not have an export available for them, this is normal). 

Click the Export link to the right of the most recent export to download a file called neo4j.dump to your local disk.

Create a new AuraDB Instance

On the main Aura console page, at the top of the page and choose New Instance.

Under Neo4j Version choose 4, and select the region you want your AuraDB Instance deployed in. This does not need to be the same region as your existing AuraDB Instance.

Make sure you select AuraDB Professional

Select the instance size (same or larger size)

Select the region and make sure to pick version 4

As always, copy the password that is displayed for future use. Let the AuraDB Instance creation complete before moving to the next step. 

Import to the AuraDB Instance just created

The final step will be to import your data.

If the dump file is smaller than 4GB you can do this in the Aura Console otherwise please use the command line tool push-to-cloud.

In the Aura Console, open your new AuraDB Instance and click the Import Data tab. Then click the Choose file button to navigate to the location of the graph.db.dump file saved in the first step.

You'll be prompted to confirm you want to overwrite all of the existing data in your new AuraDB Instance; click Upload to continue. 

Wait for import to complete

It will take anywhere from a few minutes for a small dump file, to potentially an hour or more if you have an exceptionally large amount of data and a slow internet connection, for the import to finish. 

Check that the data was imported properly

Before you switch your application over to use the new AuraDB Instance, you'll want to perform some tests to make sure that everything is working as expected. One quick way to do this is to open a browser window for both the original and new AuraDB Instances and run this Cypher query against them, comparing the output:

match (n)
optional match (n)-[r]-() 
return count(n) as Nodes, count(r) as Relationships

The numbers of nodes and relationships should be the same. If they are not, please open a ticket with our support team. 

Note: You'll still want to run whatever tests your developers have in place to be safe. 

Enjoy the new features available

With the exception of running multiple AuraDB Instances or using RBAC, there are a number of improvements available in Neo4j 4 you can now use. We recommend reviewing the complete list of deprecations, additions, and compatibility notes for versions 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 to gain a complete view of these changes.