To ensure uptime and overall stability of the Benchling platform, we regularly update and occasionally upgrade necessary infrastructure to ensure we are delivering the best experience for our users.
Benchling infrastructure upgrade schedule
May 6th, 2023 until May 20th, 2023. Saturdays from 2:00pm - 6:00pm PST
What to expect
During the upgrade Benchling will be unavailable for end users and any integrations that may interact with Benchling.
Benchling is performing a rolling upgrade; each tenant will undergo one downtime window during the indicated schedule (see below). Additionally all users will see a banner about the upcoming maintenance, while signed into the tenant, 3 days in advance.
You may notice an error, like the one shown below, if you attempt to login into Benchling during this window. We expect the downtime to last up to 4 hours for Academic users and up to 3 hours for all other users.
Example login error during a database upgrade
Example Integration connection error during a database upgrade
503 - Service Unavailable
If you have built integrations that depend on Benchling's APIs, please keep in mind that calls to Benchling APIs will not succeed when Benchling is unavailable. It is Benchling's best practice to have any integrations gracefully handle 503 HTTP response codes.
We can broadly group Benchling integrations into 3 buckets:
- Benchling-triggered, these are defined as integrations that respond to events or webhooks from Benchling
- Scheduling based, these are defined as integrations that occur on a set schedule (e.g. every hour)
- Externally-triggered, which broadly includes actions that should occur in Benchling, in response to an event or webhook from another system
For Benchling-triggered integrations, there is no impact because they won't go fire during a Benchling downtime.
For Scheduling based integrations, Benchling recommends pausing these integrations and resuming after the downtime has ended.
For externally-triggered integrations, Benchling recommends capturing any external triggers and replaying them after the downtime has ended
Upgrade Schedule
| Cohort | Upgrade Date | Downtime Schedule |
| Academic & EMEA test | Saturday, May 6, 2023 | 2pm-6pm PT |
| US test & EMEA prod | Saturday, May 13, 2023 | 3pm-6pm PT |
| US prod | Saturday, May 20, 2023 | 3pm-6pm PT |
| GxP Preview | Thursday, August 24th, 2023 | 3pm PT, up to 24h |
| GxP Production | Friday September 29th, 2023 | 4pm PT, up to 24h |
Will support be available during the infrastructure upgrade?
Yes! You can also open a ticket by emailing our support team at support@benchling.com or by filling out the form in our help center. You can also contact your Customer Success Manager. In-app messaging support will be temporarily unavailable during the upgrade.
Is there any action I need to take after the infrastructure upgrade is complete?
No. Benchling will automatically bring the tenants back up and make them available for your users as soon as the upgrade complete