Do I need to upgrade to PostgreSQL 15?

[#1]

PostgreSQL 15 is available in the November 2023 release of SAS Viya 3.5. SAS strongly recommends that customers upgrade their deployed PostgreSQL instance to version 15. Customers running SAS Viya 3.5 should check to see if they already have version 15 deployed, and if not, should consider upgrading in order to stay comfortably within PostgreSQL's support policy and to stay current with security fixes and patches. In this post, we will demonstrate how to check what version you are running in your environment, and highlight the steps you must perform to upgrade your deployed version of PostgreSQL to version 15.

If you are running a version of SAS Viya older than Viya 3.5, you must first upgrade your environment to SAS Viya 3.5 if you want to obtain PostgreSQL 15. Specifically, you should upgrade to at least Ship Event 23w44, which is the earliest release of SAS Viya 3.5 that contains PostgreSQL 15. This means that to get PostgreSQL 15, you must obtain a new order from SAS and then perform an upgrade. Any new deployments of SAS Viya 3.5 from 23w44 or later will deploy PostgreSQL version 15 by default.

Similarly, if you are running a version of Viya 3.5 earlier than Ship Event 23w44, you need to upgrade to at least that release to get PostgreSQL 15. The simplest way to verify the version you are running is to directly query the version of PostgreSQL deployed in your environment by doing the following:

Determine the deployment target(s) for PostgreSQL in your environment

In you inventory.ini file, look in the [sasdatasvrc] and [pgpoolc] (if applicable) host groups to identify the target machines, and then look in the [host_definitions] at the beginning of the file to view host information for those machines.

Select any image to see a larger version.
Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.

Check if the PostgreSQL 15 binaries have been deployed

If SAS Viya is deployed on Linux, run the following command on the target machines:

ls /opt/sas/viya/home/postgresql15

If not found, you do not yet have PostgreSQL 15 deployed.

Or if deployed on Windows, run the following in Powershell:

dir "C:\Program Files\SAS\Viya\lib\postgresql15\bin" 

If not found, you have not yet deployed PostgreSQL 15.

 
In these cases, you must contact SAS to obtain a new SAS Viya 3.5 software order from Ship Event 23w44 or later to upgrade to PostgreSQL 15. Once you have the new order, upgrade your SAS Viya deployment by following the documented instructions, remembering to perform the all-important pre-upgrade and post-upgrade steps for PostgreSQL.

If you do have the PostgreSQL 15 binaries deployed, continue to the next step.

Verify whether your SAS Viya deployment is actually running the deployed PostgreSQL 15.

It is possible that your environment has PostgreSQL 15 deployed, but post-upgrade steps to configure it haven’t been performed. As an additional check, verify whether your SAS Viya deployment is actually running the deployed PostgreSQL 15.

On Linux, run the following as sudo on one of the target machines identified earlier:

sudo cat /opt/sas/viya/config/data/sasdatasvrc/postgres/node0/PG_VERSION

On Windows, run the following in Powershell:

cat C:\ProgramData\SAS\Viya\data\sasdatasvrc\postgres\node0\PG_VERSION


A value of 15 listed in the PG_VERSION file indicates that PostgreSQL 15 is running and in use by SAS Viya. You can stop reading here, because all is as it should be!
 
However, if the listed version is not 15, some further action is required. We need to check to see if the latest PostgreSQL and related RPMs/MSIs are installed.

On Linux, run the following to check the deployed RPM versions for PostgreSQL components: 

cd /etc/init.d
rpm -qa | egrep 'sasdata|sas-postgres|pool'

The versions displayed might resemble the below (the latter part of the values displayed for each RPM is irrelevant and has been omitted):

sas-sasdatasvrc-0.8.1-XXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX
sas-postgresql-secure-libs-15-15.4-XXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX
sas-pgpoolc-0.7.0-XXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX
sas-postgresql-secure-15-15.4-XXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX
sas-pgpool-II-44-4.4.4-XXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX

If the versions shown above are displayed, this indicates you have deployed PostgreSQL 15 but not configured it yet. Some additional steps are required to reconfigure PostgreSQL and pgpool and complete the upgrade to version 15. Review the post-upgrade steps and completed all documented tasks.
 
If you do not have those versions, contact SAS to obtain a new SAS Viya software order from Ship Event 23w44 and upgrade your SAS Viya deployment in order to obtain PostgreSQL 15

Similarly, on Windows deployments, run the following in Powershell to check the MSI versions: 

dir /powershell-deployment\Downloads

If sas-datasvrc15-15.4.0.0.msi   is listed, you have PostgreSQL15 deployed but not configured yet. Again, review the post-upgrade steps and completed all documented tasks.

If you do not have that version, contact SAS to obtain a new SAS Viya software order from Ship Event 23w44 and upgrade your SAS Viya deployment in order to obtain PostgreSQL 15. A couple of additional points to consider:

• Perform a full backup after updating your SAS Viya deployment
• After upgrading PostgreSQL, do not restore backups that were taken in older versions of PostgreSQL.
• If you have upgraded to PostgreSQL version 15, and you wish to then migrate to SAS Viya 4, you must move to a supported target version of SAS Viya 4 using an external instance of PostgreSQL 15. 

Thank you for reading. My thanks also to my colleagues Cindy Taylor, Joseph Cho and Fred Perry for their contributions.