Did you miss the Ask the Expert session on Adobe Flash end of life for SAS Visual Analytics users on SAS 9? Not to worry, you can catch it on-demand at your leisure.
Prepare your SAS Visual Analytics deployment on SAS®9 for Adobe Flash end of life on Dec. 31. We cover two update paths and review case studies from customers who have already transitioned. During this webinar, you will learn:
Here are the questions from the Q&A segment held at the end of the webinar. The slides from the webinar are attached.
After December 31, 2020 browsers will no longer run Adobe Flash plugin. Consequently, applications such as SAS Visual Analytics that depend on Flash will stop working. You can try to go back to an older version of the browser to manage and view your reports, but it is better to migrate so you can use the latest browser version with the latest security patches.
Each case is different. It depends on the type of migration and what other SAS software deployed at your site. Promotion is the quickest. It is a consulting process where you must discuss and plan accordingly. Could be a few days at the shortest and on up from there.
It’s two different technologies, Flash vs. HTML5 that don’t necessarily map one to one. We have tried to keep the reports as close as possible, but there may be some differences. You should review the new reports and adjust as needed. Also, the SAS Visual Analytics release that you are migrating to may offer new enhancements that you might want to take advantage of, so reviewing the reports after migration could be a good idea.
No. If you miss the December 31 deadline to migrate, you will be able to access the reports if you don’t update your browser. If your browser is already giving you a warning that Flash will not work as of Dec. 31st then your browser will not allow you to access the reports.
The browser vendors have stated that they will block the Adobe Flash Player and content after December 31st. You can ask IT to backdate browsers, allowing the flash components to be viewable in the browsers. We have heard that some client’s IT team is creating special remote desktops behind firewalls with backdated browsers for report viewers. However, we have heard this does not work well for large numbers of users. This also means that the backdated browser will not receive other security patches for the browser.
Planning is key to minimize downtime. You should use the tool that SAS provides (system evaluation tool) to see where potential pitfalls might be. If you have other SAS products in addition to SAS Visual Analytics, all those products will move at the same time, so you need to understand what the impacts are and how to do it. 6 hours is as fast as we’ve seen it done. It’s about understanding what is going to happen and it is ideal to run a test in a second environment. Runs as fast as a normal SAS install. The further you are jumping in your upgrade can also make it take longer.
The list of SAS products with Adobe Flash dependency has more than 100 offerings. SAS is committed to providing customers non-flash options prior to Adobe Flash announced end-of-life. None of the products listed on the question depend on Flash, so they will not be impacted.
Both migration options (SAS Visual Analytics 7.5 and 8.5) provide full replacement value. Particularly for migration from SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 to 7.5, there are a few know differences:
For more information on functional comparison for the latest SAS Visual Analytics versions, please go to page 12 here: https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/technical-papers/sas9-4-sas-viya-functional-compariso...
SAS 9 is the engine where many SAS products run on. There is currently nothing in the roadmap that specifies the lifetime of SAS 9. What we have are Support Levels by Product:
https://support.sas.com/en/technical-support/support-levels.html#m=sas-visual-analytics
Beginning from the production date of the release you are running you will have 5 years of standard support, after that you will automatically move into limited support.
The only option for moving from SAS Visual Analytics on SAS 9, which is the case of SAS Visual Analytics 7.3, to SAS Visual Analytics 8.5 on SAS Viya, is via Manual Migration (a.k.a. Promotion). The process consists of installing SAS Visual Analytics 8.5 software as a new deployment and then selectively promoting content. Because it’s a new independent deployment, you can choose to preserve the current tier topology or completely change it. The new topology does not affect the migration.
Default system data limits exist and vary per object. For SAS Visual Analytics 7.5 they are documented here:
This is similar documentation for SAS Visual Analytics 8.5:
As noted in the SAS Visual Analytics 7.5 documentation, you can use the Override system data limit option to specify a different system data limit for an object. See Specify Options for an Object in SAS Visual Analytics: Working with Report Content.
We have no other versions of SAS Visual Analytics on SAS 9 planned at this time. However, that is subject to change. We will continue to monitor our customer’s experiences.
Below are links to content as well as some general feedback, specific to upgrading in-place to Visual Analytics 7.5.
SAS Content Assessment tool
Documentation
Visual Analytics specific
SAS Visual Analytics 7.5 is currently the last planned release on SAS 9.4. In order to take advantage of enhancements to VA features, customers should consider a transition to SAS Visual Analytics on SAS Viya.
SAS Visual Analytics is a client-server product supported on two SAS engines: SAS 9 and SAS Viya. While clients can run on 32 or 64-bit, server components are only supported on 64-bit architectures.
The only migration option that supports changes in topology and OS family is Manual Migration (a.k.a. Promotion). Although Promotion is considered a low-risk migration option, there are limitation on the content that can be migrated. Here is a short list of the main ones:
No issues were encountered in this particular use case. The only thing that required some rework was the slightly different syntax for loading tables in memory to take advantage of new functionality of CAS.
Yes. Point your browser to https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/technical-papers/sas9-4-sas-viya-functional-compariso... and go to page 13 for a matrix comparing the latest SAS Visual Analytics versions.
Parts of the presentation are oriented to those responsible for the VA environment. It will help you understand what option your organization has in order to remove the dependency on Flash. This could help you to ask the right questions to your administrators to make sure a plan is in place.
Please, reach out to your Account Executive.
Technical Paper: Modernizing Your SAS UIs: Removing Dependencies on Adobe Flash
SAS Visual Analytics Products: HTML5 (Flash-Free) Interfaces
SAS Software and Its Use of the Adobe Flash Player
Want more tips? Be sure to subscribe to the Ask the Expert board to receive follow up Q&A, slides and recordings from other SAS Ask the Expert webinars.
Note the new Windows 10 update (KB4577586) will permanently remove Adobe Flash when installed.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-windows-10-update-permanently-removes-adobe-flash/
Are you ready for the spotlight? We're accepting content ideas for SAS Innovate 2025 to be held May 6-9 in Orlando, FL. The call is open until September 25. Read more here about why you should contribute and what is in it for you!
Your Home for Learning SAS
SAS Academic Software
SAS Learning Report Newsletter
SAS Tech Report Newsletter