topic Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!! in Administration and Deployment

SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

MargaretC — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 12:41:41 GMT

Update: As of June 2025, SAS 9.4M9 is also now available! See

What’s new with M8? ? See the SAS® 9.4 Guide to Software Updates and Product Changes For 9.4M8, security as its primary focus. This is inclusive of upgrades to many of the third-party technologies used by the platform including but not limited to:
1. The use of available SSL libraries from the operating environment (replacing the delivery of OpenSSL for SAS Foundation)
2. OpenSSL for the SAS Web Server and Web Infrastructure Database
3. SAS private JRE is updated to Java 11 and for mainframe hosts Java 8 continues to be supported
4. Spring
5. Log4j
6. Introduction of Pervasive Encryption for z/OS
7. Geode (replacing Gemfire)
8. Tomcat (replacing tc Server)
9. Slide_webdav replacing Jackrabbit webdav
10. Postgres
11. Many Apache upgrades
12. Hundreds of third-party jar upgrades
13. Atomikos Transaction Essentials replacing Atomikos Extreme Transactions
Update system requirements? See the SAS 9.4 System Requirements for your operating system of choice. The release adds support for major releases of supported operating systems and limits support for operating systems no longer supported by their manufacturers. Some highlights of the changes (additions or removals from those supported in SAS 9.4M7) include:
1. Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Linux 7.9 is the minimum supported release. 8.x is supported and 9.1 has been added. (support for 6.x is removed)
2. Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 is added (support for version 11 is removed)
3. Support for AIX 7.2 TL5 is added (support for AIX 7.1 TLS 3 is removed)
4. Support for Oracle Solaris 11.4 is added (support for Oracle Solaris 10 is removed)
5. Support for Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 is added (support for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 is removed)
6. Support for z/OS V2R1 is added (support for V1R11 is removed)
7. Support for HP-UX is removed
Are all SAS Solutions available with the initial ship of 9.4M8? See the SAS® 9.4 Guide to Software Updates and Product Changes and individual SAS Product documentation for detailed information. Unlike prior SAS maintenance releases, not all SAS products and solutions are immediately available on SAS 9.4M8 as each is required to accommodate the significant improvements delivered and as such, those releasing on SAS 9.4M8 will become available in the coming months. Note that some SAS 9.4 Solutions will not release on SAS 9.4M8 rather their upgrade path is to the Viya platform or CI360
Any Upgrade-in-place (UIP) information? The UIP process works as it has in prior SAS releases. See the SAS® 9.4 Guide to Software Updates and Product Changes for important notes like:
1. If the operating system of your pre- SAS 9.4M8 environment does not support Java 11 and you wish to use the SAS Migration Utility to migrate to SAS 9.4M8, then you must first migrate your pre-SAS 9.4M8 to a machine running an operating system in the same family as the pre-SAS 9.4M8 system that supports Java11. This migration requires the use of the SAS Migration Utility that corresponds to the pre-SAS 9.4M8 system.
2. If your operating environment is not supported, you cannot perform an upgrade-in-place.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

MargaretC — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 22:28:43 GMT

Please note SAS has enhanced the System Evaluation Tool such that customers can run it on their 9.4Mn system and it will educate them about the changes in 9.4M8 prior to the customer doing the actual upgrade. The System Evaluation Tool is part of the Content Assessment package which can be downloaded from here: https://support.sas.com/downloads/package.htm?pid=2465

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

ccaero — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 10:24:52 GMT

Hi,

I have some questions about the retried functions / products in M8:

-) SAS/SECURE -> does this also affects AES/AES2 encryption of SAS-datasets using Metabound-Libraries? Or will the AES encryption stop working and AES encrypted SAS-datasets becoming unreadable? What about "proc pwencode" and encoding methods higher than "sas002"?
-) SAS/Session -> What does this means? Session-Functions of Stored Procedures?
-)SAS Web Report Viewer -> So SAS Web Report Studio will remain working?

Thank you in advance.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

doug_sas — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 13:51:19 GMT

SAS/SECURE was a product that included encryption libraries and SAS encryption/hashing/TLS modules. The SAS encryption/hashing/TLS modules are still there, but now use operating system libraries instead of SAS shipped encryption libraries.

For AES encryption, SAS encryption modules previously used Crypto-C MicroEdition libraries but now use Bcrypt (on Windows), OpenSSL (on Linux/UNIX), and still use ISPF on z/OS.

For TLS encryption, SAS encryption modules previously used OpenSSL libraries shipped with SAS/SECURE on Linux/UNIX and z/OS (SAS on Windows has always used SChannel). Now TLS on Linux/UNIX will use the operating system OpenSSL libraries (versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.1.1, or 3.0.x) and on z/OS will be using the z/OS GSK subsystem.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

PaulHomes — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 04:56:58 GMT

Thanks for asking these questions. After reading through the changes for 9.4 M8, I had very similar questions about clarifying the status of the SAS/SECURE features and SAS Web Report Studio. I'm in the process of downloading and installing M8 so once I have it up and running I'll let you know what I discover.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

PaulHomes — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 11:52:47 GMT

I did an install of SAS 9.4 M8 and it did include SAS Web Report Studio. I was also able to use proc pwencode with methods sas003, sas004, and sas005.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Kamion — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 13:12:24 GMT

Someone could update system requirements (list of supported operating systems) for all products available on 9.4 M8 ..

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

whymath — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 04:25:03 GMT

Yes, I tried this link and got “400 Bad Request”

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

MargaretC — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 11:30:00 GMT

@whymath I just tried all the links above and they worked for me. What link are you referring to?

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Al_CUA — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:22:21 GMT

Yes, clicking on the link above SAS 9.4 System Requirements did go to this URL

https://support.sas.com/en/documentation/system-requirements.html

Which gives the error

400 Bad Request (sas.com)

This is the link you may want.

SAS Supported Operating Systems

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Al_CUA — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 15:09:36 GMT

I was looking forward to this update. Getting approval to undertake an update has taken a lot of effort.

However, I am gutted to see that the SAS Information Delivery Portal has been retired.

"Starting with SAS 9.4M8, SAS Information Delivery Portal is no longer available."
https://support.sas.com/en/software/information-delivery-portal-support.html
https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/whatsdiff/upgradeswhatsnew94.htm

I understand it was an earlier BI iteration, but the first iteration, SAS/IntrNet 9.4 (CGI), is getting an update while the Portal (Java) is not??
https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/whatsdiff/p0bucsp38gvtuyn1n34u03d6kine.htm

I assume this planned retirement was announced? Such announcements are significant for us to help schedule and prepare for all future work accordingly.

I do follow these areas but it is not quite the same. Are there other formal-like areas?https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/whatsdiff/p1rxod72hits05n1s67v2m5b96u0.htm
https://support.sas.com/en/documentation/third-party-software-reference/9-4/support-for-other-products.html

I can understand the initial Q4 2022 was pushed back to 31 Jan, and that may have meant some descoping of products even to meet the new deadline, and I am sympathetic to trying to release something during the festive season, but we have hundreds of Portal users throughout the organisation;.this will sadly hurt us in many ways.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

MargaretC — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 13:01:43 GMT

@Al_CUA I have checked as to why SAS Information Delivery Portal is no longer available in SAS 9.4M8. The reason that the SAS Information Delivery Portal is not delivered in SAS 9.4M8 is that it is built on Spring and with the Spring 5 upgrade (required for security reasons) in SAS 9.4M8, Spring no longer provides support for portlets. Without the support for portlets, the underlying technology of SAS Information Delivery Portal no longer works.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

ccaero — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 15:16:28 GMT

@PaulHomes

Thank you for the feedback, that sound not so bad 😊
I will try the update by myself and also give feeback.

@All

Does anyone know what is meant by "SAS/Session"?

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Quentin — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 15:56:22 GMT

What page did you see the mention of SAS/Session ? I'm not aware of a SAS product with that name.

I don't see it mentioned in the long list of products at:

https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/whatsdiff/titlepage.htm

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Resa — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 16:43:37 GMT

@Quentin SAS/Session is mentioned in the list of Retired Products and Features on the What's new page for SAS 9.4 M8 (https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/whatsdiff/upgradeswhatsnew94.htm)

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Quentin — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 17:17:43 GMT

Thanks @Resa , indeed I see SAS/Session there.

Never heard of it. Looks like google and most search engines ignore a slash, so searching for site:sas.com 'SAS/Session' just returns a lot of pages about SAS sessions, but not SAS/Session. Odd.

Hopefully a SAS insider will help. @MargaretC , do you know what SAS/Session is?

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

MargaretC — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 17:24:23 GMT

SAS/Session is a separate SAS product that is only available on the z/OS platform. Once installed and configured, it allows a user to invoke SAS while signed into a CICS region (CICS is another user environment that can be invoked instead of TSO). A SAS session runs as a single CICS transaction when invoked via SAS/Session.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Al_CUA — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 01:16:09 GMT

Hello Margaret,

Thank you very much for enquiring about that!

Our security vulnerability tool has flagged the Spring version, so the need to update is something we were looking forward to.

But even with Spring 5 dropping Portlets, there are still some options. Were those options explored?

Knowing that information will help us to tailor the message to senior leaders.

I can see the Spring Framework and a Portlet API is still available.

What does the future hold for Spring Portlet MVC? Long live PortletMVC4Spring! - Liferay

When digging deeper, I can see the various versions of Spring 5. x are supported.

portletmvc4spring/README.md at master · liferay/portletmvc4spring · GitHub

Also, while SAS is still using Java Portlet Specification, JSR-168 (2003)

SAS Help Center: SAS Web Applications

There is no need to update to JSR 362 (2017)

portletmvc4spring/README.md at master · liferay/portletmvc4spring · GitHub

Is this a relatively straightforward option with minimal commercial impact?

Another option is Spring Web Flow, which is still available in Spring 5.

Spring Web Flow Reference Guide

So, I do wonder about the feasibility of these options.

As alluded to earlier, I believe there would have been time constraints in delivering M8. And M8 focuses on updating many third-party components, ensuring support remains and things can run 'as-is'.

At a detailed level, while in option 1 the Development effort/ cost is just six (6) steps to switch out the framework values in various config files and to use a different class instead, it is no doubt far more effort/ cost to do those updates in the SAS codebase. Every environment has tech debt, etc, to work through too. That is normal.

With Development not being as much a part of M8, compared to earlier Maintenance releases, it would still have been an additional testing effort on top of the already considerable required for other products, SAS/ Internt, etc. And probably a hard thing to advocate for as well.

With all those things considered, I am sympathetic to that.

And on top of that, the topic of dropping Portlets support was a while ago, in 2016.

Drop Portlet MVC support [SPR-14129] · Issue #18701 · spring-projects/spring-framework · GitHub

However, the subsequent impact of dropping the Portal is a sudden announcement for us and some others.

And there are technical options available to accommodate the change. There always are.

This will not be well received. It is a difficult message to share with Senior leaders, some of whom would have advocated for SAS instead and the update to M8. So, I want to ensure we have done all we can.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

Quentin — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 15:21:12 GMT

Thanks for these thoughtful comments, @Al_CUA .

As a SAS programmer, one of the benefits of the SAS coding language(s) (vs say R or python) is that you could confidently say (and see) that SAS code written 20 years ago will keep running.

Clearly with SAS products that is not the case, no doubt for good reasons. But when organizations invest in SAS products, that does put them in the unfortunate position of trying to 'read the tea leaves' to predict the future of various products, when SAS does not (perhaps cannot) share the roadmap for each product with year(s)of advance notice. Of course this is a challenge not just for SAS users but for users of products from any software company (companies fail, products end, etc.). But I'm glad to see these concerns raised in relation to SAS, and also raised in such a polite manner.

Re: SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

MargaretC — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:35:51 GMT

@Al_CUA Thank you for your comment. I have reviewed your concerns with many folks in SAS R&D and they assured me that we tried very hard to support IDP in SAS 9.4M8. Unfortunately, we are not able to. Here are some information on next steps with regard to moving away from IDP - SAS Help Center: Transitioning from a Stand-Alone SAS Information Delivery Portal Deployment

Have you reached out to your SAS Account Manager on help with this transition?