Upgrading to SAS94M2

[CarlM]

We have always upgraded by creating new zones and installing the new version or maintenance release.  Then we have to run both versions while we migrate and get ready for the switch.  This is a lot of work and takes a lot of resources.  Is there a supported upgrade path, or is a fresh install always required? 

It has become a issue going from SAS94M0 to SAS94M2.  Both of these releases take a lot of disk, CPU, and swap. At some point response time on a production system will be impacted and require more hardware.

Thanks Carl Mathews

University of Arkansas

[Mark_sas · Accepted solution]

You can certainly upgrade "in-place" from one maintenance release of SAS to another (e.g., 9.4M0->9.4M2, 9.4M1->9.4M2, etc.).  Of course you're impacting your production environment while doing so, so appropriate care should be taken.  In such a situation, backups are essential as they are the only way to undo an upgrade-in-place.

Many users employ the upgrade-in-place approach on dev/test/staging systems prior to replicating the steps on a production system.  Others use a blue-green approach, where they'll upgrade their blue system in-place and then swap it with their production green system (which is subsequently upgraded in-place).  However these approaches obviously require the duplicate resources you're trying to avoid.

[jakarman]

When you are on Unix you could think on having the two versions existing on the same machine. The problem with Windows (server/desktop) is the Win-registry. However it still can be done._

The installation itself doesn't cost that much just dasd-space. The middletier is more the think about (more costly). 

It is about peacefull coexistence http://support.sas.com/rnd/migration/utility/upgrade.html when you would need multiple versions for a longer period on the same hardware.
Rrequirement: Separated sashome folders separated configs separated portnumbers. This is more planning and thinking.  

It will avoid having duplicated hardware and avoid the datasynchronisation problems when several versions are needing the same data.

[CarlM]

Thanks for the helpful links -Carl

[CarlM]

Mark,

Thanks for the information. -Carl