The only thing that’s constant is change. The continual cycle of computing changes leads to common questions about the effects of these changes—operating systems are getting upgraded, customers are moving to new SAS clients, upgrading to new releases of SAS, working with new Java and browser versions. All of these are occurring regularly at customer sites and usually not at the same time.
Keeping up with new releases of SAS and changes in hardware and software configurations, leads to some common questions we get in Technical Support. Have you asked any of these questions recently? Do they sound familiar to you?
- I have SAS 9.1.3 and my company is upgrading our desktops to Windows 7. Is SAS 9.1.3 compatible with Windows 7?
- We’d like to upgrade our server to SAS 9.4 but we can’t update our SAS Enterprise Guide 5.1 clients until next year. Is SAS Enterprise Guide 5.1 supported with SAS 9.4?
- Our company uses Chrome as our standard browser. Is it compatible with our release of SAS?
There are excellent resources available on support.sas.com that can answer these kinds of questions and make sure that you can navigate these changes successfully. Bookmark the locations below, and you can find the matching SAS release the next time your operating system, SAS client release or third-party software release changes:
Matching SAS releases with their supported operating systems. SAS has an app for that! By entering your platform and release information on the Supported Operating Systems page, you can determine whether Foundation SAS is compatible with your current operating system.
Location: http://support.sas.com/supportos/list
Matching SAS client releases with releases of Foundation SAS. Support Matrices for SAS clients with SAS 9 is a series of tables listing the compatibility of SAS software releases with releases of an array of SAS clients and solutions such as SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Marketing Optimization, SAS Forecast Studio and SAS Management Console.
Location: http://support.sas.com/kb/51/162.html
Matching SAS releases with required third-party software. Third-party reference pages include matrices listing SAS software and applications along with the release of any required third-party software. These pages contain additional details and references that will be useful during installation and troubleshooting.
Location: http://support.sas.com/resources/thirdpartysupport/index.html
1 Comment
Casey that information is nice inventory, well done. But I have a nasty question, that is: Ever thought on why release management of SAS installations is felt that difficult by SAS customers?
- Dealing with closed desktops being maintained with other parties.
- A server environment that is quite different to maintain than a LAMP stack, DB server or router.
- Data governance procedures and LDAP with RBAC procedures. Being audited to policies
- ITIL processes with a strict change management process With Develop UAT Prod segregations
- a SDW form SAS with a SASHFADD not being aligned to all this.
The difference :
- a windows fix is rolled out quickly and accepted for side-effects
- a new z/OS release or mainframe is a scheduled task hardly ever noticed
- a SAS fix to apply is a big project needing a lot of time (money)
- Implementing a new SAS release is even a bigger project than applying a SAS fix
The similarity
- replacing a desktop infrastructure a new Windows version is a big project big hurdle
- replacing a SAS release (9.2 -> 9.4) is a bug hurdle.