SASŪ Third Party Software Requirements - Baseline and Higher Support
In order to keep pace with changes to third party technologies and meet the needs of our customers, SAS has adopted a general policy of supporting one or more baseline major versions and subsequent minor updates for each third party product. The supported baseline major versions are documented on support.sas.com.Beginning with SAS 9.2, in order to add support for major version changes in third party software that the "and higher" process does not address, SAS has a formalized process for evaluating and adding support as appropriate. SAS will add support for major versions of third party software either at maintenance boundaries or sooner, depending on the impact of the change needed to SAS software. This support process is in addition to the "and higher" support policy described in this document. Support for newer major versions will be documented on support.sas.com.
A minor update which is found to produce significant problems with SAS software would be treated as an exception to this policy. SAS will document such findings on support.sas.com. If problems are found in the field with a specific third party minor update, SAS will work with the vendor to gain resolution, which may include requiring upgrade to a later minor release of the third party software that includes the correction.These third party technologies are at various stages of maturity in terms of backward compatibility, stability, and robustness. We have broken out these third party dependencies into discrete groupings based on technology and the level of software maturity.
Operating systems:
Beginning with the minimum system requirements for that release of SAS software, SAS will support both major and minor versions, as defined by the Independent Software Vendor (ISV), unless the Operating System upgrade also necessitates an unsupported third party product change. SAS will also support vendor-supplied patches to any supported version of the operating system.For example, if the baseline for SAS version x is Solaris 8, SAS version x would support Solaris 9 and 10 under this policy. However, if a SAS Software product or component requires version y of a third party product but version y is not yet supported on Solaris 10, that SAS product or component would not yet be supported on Solaris 10.
Java Development Kits (JDKs)/Java Runtime Environments (JREs):
Beginning with the minimum system requirements for that release of SAS software, SAS will support minor updates, as defined by the ISV. This covers all fix packs, maintenance packs, service packs, minor versions, and security patches.Feature packs are new functionality that we would not necessarily commit to support until a new release point.
For example, if the minimum system requirement is Java 5, update 12 for a release of SAS software, then Java 5 update 15 would be supported. SAS will extend support for major version upgrades (such as Java 6) as appropriate and described above. (major version upgrade support is not a direct effect of this policy.)
Java Application Servers:
Beginning with the minimum system requirements for that release of SAS software, SAS will support minor versions within a major version family, as defined by the third party vendor. This covers all fix packs, maintenance packs, service packs, feature packs, minor versions, and security patches.For example, if the minimum System Requirement for SAS version x is WebSphere 6.1.0.17, then "and higher" means that for SAS version x, all WebSphere minor versions, fix packs, security fixes, and the like issued subsequent to version 6.1.0.17 would be considered supported under this policy.
Web Browsers:
Beginning with the minimum system requirements for that release of SAS software, SAS will support minor versions as defined by the ISV. This covers all fix packs, maintenance packs, minor versions, and security patches.For example, if the minimum system requirement for SAS version x is Firefox 2.0, then "and higher" means that for SAS version x, all Firefox minor versions, security fixes, and the like issued subsequent to version 2.0 would be considered supported under this policy. SAS will extend support for major version upgrades (such as Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8) as appropriate and described above. (major version upgrade support is not a direct effect of this policy.)
