Hotfix server and/or sas clients

[ANLYNG]

Hi all,

We runs SAS 9.4 M6 server installation on LINUX. The server installation was hotfixed last month by SAS Institute.

I was wondering if it is needed to hotfix the SAS clients (SMC, SAS DI, Enterprise Guide) as well ? 

We are planning to go to SAS 9.4 M8 later this year (octocber/november) and it could be nice if we could wait with the update of the clients. The clients was latest hotfixed October 2021.

As far I know it is possible to run with newer (software release) clients on an older (software release) server. But it needs to be very controlled when we moved to M8 release from M6.

Thanks for all inputs and ideas. Look forward to hear from you.

Regards,

Ann

[SASKiwi · Accepted solution]

In my experience there is no problem using SAS clients that don't have the same fixes as the SAS servers they are connecting to. In some cases you can even run clients with different maintenance levels. EG is not tied to server maintenance releases and can be upgraded independently via its "Check for upgrades" Help menu option. 

[Anand_V]

I have never applied Hot Fixes for clients. Hot Fixes are for server side components only. Unless there is a major change and client has an upgraded version which is only compatible with a selected server version, you can still use the old clients without any issue.

[Sajid01]

Hello @ANLYNG 
As you are planning to move to SAS 9.4M8 later, that would give the opportunity to upgrade the clients too.
Therefore hot fix to present clients can be deferred unless there is some specific requirement/issue.