End-of-life status for Adobe Flash – What does it mean for SAS users?

Adobe announced that they are shifting Flash Player to end-of-life support, and by December 2020, Adobe will stop supporting and distributing Flash Player altogether. But why should the end of Adobe Flash matter to SAS users? When it happens, operations for many SAS users will be disrupted, forcing them to migrate to a different environment.

That is precisely what is discussed in this blog post.

Shifting Flash to end-of-life status – Why does it matter to SAS users?

As you might know, software is shifted to end-of-life status when a vendor (in this case, Adobe) believes that the software (Flash Player) has outlived its usefulness and will stop scheduling updates and maintenance. Considering that technology develops at a breakneck pace, if the software is not updated regularly, it cannot keep up with business demands. This means those who continue using software with Adobe Flash Player will find itself lagging behind its competitors in terms of operational efficiency and innovation.

Considering the breakneck pace at which analytics and the wider tech industry are developing, a bottleneck in innovation is the last thing organisations want.

This is where SAS users should be concerned about Adobe’s shift to end-of-life status. Certain SAS products, like SAS 9.3 and 9.4, use Flash to develop the GUI.

By the end of 2020, Adobe Flash will cease to exist, and with it, any content developed from Flash will no longer operate as it should. This will hurt analytics operations and compromise their ability to generate insights in the long run.

What is the recommended action for SAS users?

It’s important to take immediate action to mitigate the fallout from this development. The first course of action is to compare the technical offerings of your products against that of other offerings.

You should upgrade to a different environment that offers features similar to your current platform. For example, those who are using SAS® Viya® should migrate to SAS Viya. However, those who use different SAS products or cannot find a direct replacement should upgrade their SAS environment to SAS 9.4M6.

Furthermore, the IT support team needs to examine options on offer for the current platform. SAS is moving all products with Adobe Flash to limited support on 31st December 2020, so you need to assess what the platforms will be able to do with this limited support before planning future operations.

What’s the best course of action?

At the end of 2020, Adobe will no longer support Flash, which means organisations will have to shift from one platform to another. To successfully shift from your current SAS product to another, it is important to start planning the migration process. However, facilitating the shift or upgrade from one environment to another is no easy task, so it is important to work with the right SAS partner that can help you make the shift as smooth as possible to minimise negative impact.

With Selerity, you have a dedicated team whose administration services can help facilitate the shift from one environment to another to reduce operating costs while maximising ROI on the platform.