Additional Information on SAS® Customer Intelligence 360 Alert regarding upgrading agents to Java 11
This communities post addresses some questions that customers might have after reading the SAS Customer Intelligence Customer alert – “SAS® Customer Intelligence 360 requires Java 11 for general agents, diagnostic agents, and SDK-based custom agents for 23.08 and later.”
The note says that this alert does not apply to the direct agent (SAS® 360 Engage: Direct) or the Optimize agent (SAS® 360 Engage: Optimize). Can customers also expect a requirement to update to Java 11 for these agents later on in the year?
The SAS 360 Engage: Direct and SAS 360 Engage: Optimize agents are bound to SAS®9, and they mimic what is supported by the relevant maintenance version.
The SAS® 9.4M5 (TS1M5)–SAS® 9.4M7 (TS1M7) versions of these agents are bound to SAS 9 and must remain on Java 8 since these SAS versions do not support Java 11.
The agents for SAS® 9.4M8 (TS1M8) are already on Java 11 since SAS 9.4M8 supports this Java version.
Why is this alert relevant only to general agents, diagnostic agents, and SDK-based custom agents?
The general, diagnostic, and custom agents are not bound to SAS 9. Therefore, these are being updated now because support for Java 8 is running out. SAS wants to take advantage of the more secure and newer Java version.
The alert says that customers “will need to update their environment so that the agent is run using Java 11.” Is this a straightforward process, and is involvement from SAS needed?
SAS 9.4M8 is shipped with Java 11, and the customer might decide to use the JRE that SAS provided or a third-party JRE.
If the customer upgrades the general, diagnostics, or custom agents to version 23.08, they need to make sure that these agents point to and use JRE version 11 (JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables) in the environments that the agents reside in.
SAS 9.4M5-SAS 9.4M7 is shipped with Java 8. If the customer is using SAS 9.4M5–SAS 9.4M7, SAS 9 will still use Java 8 and will not support Java 11.
Therefore, if the customer upgrades the general, diagnostics, or custom agents to version 23.08, the customer should install a separate Java version 11 JRE (Oracle or OpenJDK). Then, the customer should make sure that these agents point to and use JRE version 11 (JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables) in the environments that the agents reside in.
For example, by altering the file for the mkt-agent-sdk general agent, which is located in the [Your agent folder]/systemd/ folder, you will find something similar to the following:
#set JAVA_HOME to root of the Java 1.11 installation on this machine
JAVA_HOME=/opt/sas/onprem/jdk1.11.0_201
More information can be found in the SAS Customer Intelligence 360: Administration Guide. Search for the topic, “Running the General Agent as a Service in UNIX (systemD)”
Note: Customers should make sure that they are pointing to the correct version for the different agents when they upgrade to 23.08.
If customers are not able to update their environments by August 8, 2023 (for example, a freeze occurs in their IT team sprints), will they still be allowed to update the agents beyond version 23.08 even if they do not have Java 11?
The general, diagnostics, and custom agents—from version 23.08 and later—will require Java 11 to function. Once version 23.08 of these agents is available, it is fine if the customer decides not to upgrade immediately to version 23.08 of these agents.
For example, if the customer has a 23.07 version of these agents, that version will be supported for at least three versions after the 23.08 release.
Is Java 17 supported as well as Java 11 with 23.08 Agent SDK?
SAS is not aware of any incompatibilities with using Java 17 to run the agent, but Java 17 has not been tested. Currently, Java 17 is not officially supported, but it should work without any issues.
Do we need to wait until 23.08 to switch to Java 11 or Java 17, or is Java 11 or Java 17 already supported with the current version (23.06)?
Any agent versions prior to 23.08 are not supported with either Java 11 or Java 17. The customer needs to wait until version 23.08 is released.
Note: Upgrading the agent to version 23.08 and Java 11 needs to occur at the same time.
Can we upgrade the Java version to version 11 before CI360 version 23.08 is released in August? Are all current Agents compatible with Java 11?
Customers can first update once the agents are available in version 23.08.
Note that customers are not required to do anything on the day on which version 23.08 is released. The old agents running Java 8 will continue to work.
Only the 23.08 agents require Java 11. SAS will continue to support agents that are at least three revisions old.
The first time that the customer needs to take action will be in late 2023 when the 23.07 agents start aging out. However, if the customer needs a newer feature that is available in 23.08, they will need to upgrade sooner.
Please note that the Customer Alert included this link under section “Additional Information”:
This link can also be found in the following location:
SAS Help Center: Configuring Agents for an Access Point
