Can I run the Renew SAS Software 9.4 Utility without causing an outage for my users? I plan to run the utility and then let the system reboot on the regular schedule so as to not affect my end users. Is this possible?
You don't even need to run the utility. The proc setinit is included in the license file. Copy/paste, save as setinit.sas and run sas setinit.sas as the SAS install user.
BTW you can test this for yourself. After applying the licence, start a new SAS session like EG and run PROC SETINIT. You will see that the new licence is applied. There are some complications around SAS mid-tier apps where you need to update the licence in SAS metadata but even here no outage is needed.
The SAS Users Group for Administrators (SUGA) is open to all SAS administrators and architects who install, update, manage or maintain a SAS deployment.