SAS 9.4 M8 is now available!!

[Al_CUA]

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

[Al_CUA]

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-produc...

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.

[MargaretC]

@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.

[Al_CUA]

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. 

1)

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?

2)

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.  

[Quentin]

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.

[MargaretC]

@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?

[Al_CUA]

Thank you, Margaret, for asking the question and sharing the link.
Yes, I know what our local SAS rep will say and how this will go internally; the BI space is a competitive market.

But thank you once again for all your efforts. 

[svh]

Which solutions does this apply to: "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"

[MargaretC]

@svh We can take this offline or you can work with your SAS Account Manager.