The Major/prominent advantages and disadvantages of SAS 9.4 over SAS 9.3

[ReemaRoy]

Our current projects are running on SAS 9.3. We have requirements to build a new project using SAS. I was wondering if I could jot down the major benefits we would get if we upgrade our version from 9.3 to 9.4. And also if I could have the prerequisites for installing SAS 9.4.

[anja]

Hi,

the major benefit of going to SAS 9.4 is that you'll have lots of new features available.

Even tho SAS 9.3 is still supported, if you do have the opportunity to upgrade, I would definitely

recommend to do that.

Some information on What's New in SAS 9.4:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/whatsnew/64788/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p05re4h7drh86rn1x...

Most important question: are you running in a Metadata Server environment?

If you do, there are some things to consider, such as would you do a migration or promotion, meaning,

would you migrate all your 9.3 content to SAS 9.4, or just partial content?

The following gives you an overview of both approaches:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/bimig/69173/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n01020intelplatform0...

http://support.sas.com/rnd/migration/utility/upgrade.html#doyouhave

As for the pre-requisites, what OS are you on?

What products do you have licensed?

If you are running in a non-metadata environment, the following migration focus area might be helpful:

http://support.sas.com/rnd/migration/

Please let me know of any questions you may have about migration.

Best

Anja

[Reeza]

As a user, two best reasons to upgrade:

1. Better features in SGPLOT

2. ODS EXCEL - creating native excel file by default with formatting

3. Enhanced options in statistical procedures (ie Competing Risks for PROC PHREG). 

[LinusH]

If one is to tell the benefits we need to know the business requirements, it constraints, complexity of current environment, staff competence etc.
Perhaps it would be worth investing a few hours for an experienced SAS solution/platform architect to help you evaluate your options.

[Reeza]

Or ask your users. They'll be aware of the things they try but can't do because of version issues. 

[AnandVyas]

Hi @ReemaRoy

While many others have listed their views and @anja have also shared links on what are the new features in SAS94, I would like to tell something on the Web Tier.

If your project is using SAS Web Applications then with SAS94 you have inbuilt SAS Middle Tier ( Web Server and Web Application Server ) that can help manage the Web Tier Better. Also we have the SAS EVM which is very good feature to monitor your environment resources.

At the end it's always good to take help from SAS Architects to understand the project requirements and then decide.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
AV