SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

[MargaretC]

1. 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
2. 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:
   7. 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)
   8. Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 is added (support for version 11 is removed)
   9. Support for AIX 7.2 TL5 is added (support for AIX 7.1 TLS 3 is removed)
   10. Support for Oracle Solaris 11.4 is added (support for Oracle Solaris 10 is removed)
   11. Support for Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 is added (support for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 is removed)
   12. Support for z/OS V2R1 is added (support for V1R11 is removed)
   13. Support for HP-UX is removed
3. 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     
4. 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:
   9. 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.
   10. If your operating environment is not supported, you cannot perform an upgrade-in-place.

[MargaretC]

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  

[ccaero]

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.

[doug_sas]

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.

[PaulHomes]

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.

[PaulHomes]

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.

[ccaero]

@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"?

[Quentin]

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

[Resa]

@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)

[Quentin]

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?

[MargaretC]

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.

[NovGetRight]

Holy shit, SAS ODS Graphics Designer are retired ..

[Kamion]

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

[whymath]

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

[MargaretC]

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