SAS 9.4 Maintenance Release 8 (M8) was released in January 2023

Performance Enhancements

If you are coming from M5, M6, or M7, the upgrade path to M8 is standardized, but there are a few caveats:

Graphics & Devices:

New TIFF and TIFFK devices support RGBA and CMYK color modes, respectively, while SVG/GIF devices support animation.

is not backward compatible

SAS 9.4M8 with Viya 3.5 or earlier. If your organization runs a hybrid environment with Viya 3.x, you must plan a migration of CAS servers to Viya 4 before upgrading SAS 9.4 to M8. However, M8 works seamlessly with Viya 4.

If you are an administrator planning an upgrade or fresh install, follow this roadmap:

The Evolution of Stability: Implementing SAS 9.4M8 for Enterprise Analytics