SAS is excited to announce the general availability of SAS 9.4 maintenance 9 (9.4M9), released in June 2025 for supported UNIX and Microsoft Windows operating systems. (Note: SAS® 9.4M9 on IBM z/OS will deliver in the third quarter of 2025.)
SAS 9.4M9 will be under Standard Support until July 2030. To learn more about SAS 9.4M9 features and enhancements, please see What’s New in SAS®9 M9 Q&A, Slides, and On-Demand Recording. Customers planning to update an older SAS 9.4 maintenance release to SAS 9.4M9 are encouraged to review What’s New in SAS 9.4 Guide to Software Updates and corresponding documentation.
SAS® 9.4 Support Policy Updates
With the release of SAS 9.4M9, all products released on SAS 9.4 will move to Limited Support on the same date as the SAS 9.4 platform on which they run. This will allow SAS to continually address security vulnerabilities and fix bugs more efficiently. For example, the SAS 9.4M9 platform moves to Limited Support on July 1, 2030. Therefore, all products and solutions delivered on SAS 9.4M9 will move to Limited Support on this same date.
The support policies that have been updated are Support for SAS® 9.4 & Earlier Releases and Policies for All SAS Products. Please take a moment to review them.
Additional SAS® 9.4 Notes and Reminders
SAS® 9.4M9
SAS 9.4 has been retired on Solaris on SPARC and Solaris on Intel operating environments starting at 9.4M9. This change is necessary because SAS 9.4M9 requires a newer version of Java that is not supported on Solaris SPARC and x86. However, Solaris continues to be a supported operating system with SAS® 9.4M8.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is supported for SAS Logon Manager. SAS web applications that use SAS Logon Manager are protected by MFA.
NETENCRYPTALGORITHM (NETENCRALG) system option values AES, DES, RC2, RC4, and TripleDES have been deprecated. In the second quarter of 2026, these options will no longer be supported. Please see SAS KB0041538 for details.
SAS® 9.4M8
Standard Support for the SAS 9.4M8 platform ends February 1, 2028. After that date, products running on the SAS 9.4M8 platform will stop receiving security patches and bug fixes. A list of products and their versions moving to Limited Support is available here.
SAS® 9.4M7
Standard Support for the SAS 9.4M7 platform ends September 1, 2025. After that date, product versions running on the SAS 9.4M7 platform will stop receiving security patches and bug fixes. A list of products and their versions moving to Limited Support on the SAS 9.4M7 platform is available at Older SAS 9.4 Platform Releases and Product Versions Moving to Limited Support in 2025.
SAS® 9.4M6 – SAS® 9.4M0
The grace period for Standard Support for SAS 9.4M0 through SAS 9.4M6 ended on February 1, 2025. All products and solutions running on one of these SAS 9.4 platform releases is currently in Limited Support. A list of product and solution versions in Limited Support is available at Older SAS 9.4 Platform Releases and Product Versions Moving to Limited Support in 2025.
SAS Extended Technical Support for Software Under Limited Support
SAS Technical Support appreciates the opportunity to serve you. To maximize your SAS investment and keep systems secure, SAS encourages customers to run the latest SAS software and apply hot fixes regularly. However, we recognize that some deployments, such as certified or verified systems, are not easy to change in coordination with the SAS release schedule. To address this gap, SAS Technical Support offers SAS Extended Technical Support for some software that has moved to Limited Support. Contact your Account Executive for more information and to see whether your system qualifies.
SAS and IBM Support ended for Platform Suite for SAS version 9.1 and SAS® Grid Manager for Platform Control Server version 9.1
Support for IBM Platform LSF 9.1.x, including IBM Platform Process Manager 9.1.x, reached End of Life in April 2020. To give customers time to update, we announced that IBM and SAS were extending support for these offerings for an additional three years (until April 2023). Customers were encouraged to plan either an upgrade to SAS 9.4M8 or to perform a manual update of Platform Suite for SAS version 9.1 and SAS Grid Manager for Platform Control Server version 9.1 to version 10.x or later. Because this support window has ended, SAS Technical Support might not be able to assist with software issues or environment failures related to IBM LSF 9.1.x or IBM Platform Process Manager 9.1.x or earlier. Customers are reminded to perform the steps necessary to update IBM LSF and/or IBM Platform Process Manager to a later version. If your system is impacted, please refer to the Knowledge Article appropriate for your operating system:
UNIX: Independent upgrade of Platform Suite for SAS® to Version 12.1 for UNIX on SAS® 9.4M2, SAS® 9.4M3, a...
Windows: Independent upgrade of Platform Suite for SAS® to Version 12.1 for Windows on SAS® 9.4M2, SAS® 9.4M3...
Note: Customers running SAS software in Limited Support and an end-of-life version of IBM LSF or Platform Process Manager will not qualify for Extended Technical Support for other products unless they perform a manual update as described in the links above.
Our policies are available online at Support Policies. If you have any questions about the information provided in this update, please reach out to us at Contact Technical Support . My staff is here to assist you.
Sincerely,
Kimberly May
Senior Vice President of Global Support
Research and Development
See also
2025 milestones 2026 milestones 2027 milestones 2028 milestones
