Migrating SAS Content to SAS 9.3

The following list summarizes the steps required to install SAS 9.3 and migrate earlier SAS version content on a single machine or in a distributed, heterogeneous environment:

1. Design your migration.

2. Perform pre-migration tasks.

3. Install SAS 9.3 and migrate your content from an earlier SAS version.

4. Perform post-migration tasks.

5. Validate your migration.

The sections that follow provide brief descriptions of each of these tasks. Subsequent chapters in the guide provide the step-by-step instructions that you will need to perform them.

For SAS solutions, see the product's documentation for additional information about migration and promotion.

Designing your migration means reviewing the SAS 9.3 requirements (hardware, software, and migration) against your current SAS deployment, and developing a plan for how to get your SAS content—your data and configuration—integrated into a SAS 9.3 system.

One of the migration tools that SAS provides, the SAS Migration Utility, generates a migration analysis report. Using this report, you can analyze every machine in your current SAS deployment to answer these crucial design questions:

Looking at your migration design, you might have identified some of your SAS 9.1.3 products that require maintenance before you can migrate them. Also, some of your hardware might need to be upgraded or operating systems patched and third-party software updated.

During the pre-migration task phase, you will create a migration package that contains your current SAS data and configuration to use the SAS Migration Utility. The other major SAS migration tool, the SAS Deployment Wizard, uses your migration package as input to move your earlier SAS content successfully to SAS 9.3.

In addition to the SAS migration package, the wizard also relies on the presence of another package—SAS Software Depot—that contains SAS 9.3 installation files. You create a SAS Software Depot when you download your SAS 9.3 order, or from removable media that you receive directly from SAS.

Step three is when you use the SAS Deployment Wizard to install SAS 9.3 and to migrate your current SAS content and configuration that you packaged using the SAS Migration Utility in step two.

Step four consists of performing manual tasks like running authorization differences reports and moving content that the migration utility did not migrate.

An important final step in migration is validating that your SAS 9.3 servers, clients, middle tier, and Web clients are functioning and can use migrated content from your earlier SAS version.

For a discussion of functionality changes in SAS 9.3, see SAS 9.3 Guide to Software Updates.