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I noticed SAP has not released an EBF for SQL Anywhere 17 (Windows on X64 64BIT) in over 5 months, the longest gap in-between EBF's in at least 6 years. A month ago, I submitted a support ticket/question on SAP For Me about when we could anticipate a new update and was told that one would be coming soon, and that SAP was currently testing. One month later, nothing. Anyone know anything? Should I not be concerned about the lack of a recent EBF? |
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The end of SQL Anywhere? This is news to me. As product owner I feel like I would probably know. The EOM, the absolute minimum maintenance date for SQL Anywhere has been pushed out to Dec. 31, 2028. This means that 17.0 SP1 will be supported by engineering at the very least until that date. The date doesn't get pushed out too far into the future because if a new version comes out we don't want to be held responsible to support two versions at the same time for too long. The reason that this latest EBF has taken so long is that we've upgraded the compiler, gone through extensive testing and had to deal with a number of issues as a result. The windows patch is on the verge of being released as all testing has completed. I hope this helps! 1
Interesting.... About one year back we did read somewhere on a sap web page that SQL Anywhere 17 will be EOL in late 2025. So if in the meantime SAP did change ideas about the product, it did not reach (part) of it's users. But some kind of "long term comitment" from sap would be nice to have
(20 Feb, 08:52)
André Schild
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I'm not sure where you saw that but it doesn't even make sense to have an EOL date before an EOM date. Perhaps you are referring to some SQLA OEM agreements being discontinued at the end of 2025. That statement had no implications on the SQLA EOM date and says nothing about a SQL Anywhere EOL date which has never been announced.
(20 Feb, 09:03)
Jason Noack
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Jason, IMHO it would be helpful if SQL Anywhere product owner(s) and marketing people would post within this forum more frequently - several questions on the "SQL Anywhere Future" had been asked in the last year and were discussed by customers for weeks or months before an "official SAP answer" was posted (say, by Mike Paola). Those were basically OEM-related questions, but it easily leaves the impression that all things SQL Anywhere-wise are about to going down slowly... - in that respect I share André's impression. So I'm very thankful for your clarification.
(20 Feb, 09:22)
Volker Barth
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Jason, thanks for the clarification and the detail on the upcoming EBF, much appreciated!
(20 Feb, 11:09)
wndstorm_sqlaf
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Jason, it would be good to also share this concept inside SAP, because a lot of SAP sales representatives refer to the current EOM date as being really the end date for SQLA. So talking to them you always get the impression that after 2028 we wont have any SQLA anymore.
(23 Feb, 03:07)
Martin
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SQL Anywhere 17.0 SP1 PL15 Build 7672 has been posted for Windows and Linux today. Thanks Chris! Question for you. Is there a reason why the associated KBA isn't updated the same day the new EBF is posted for download so that notifications would be sent to SAP For Me users that have that article "favorited"?
(21 Feb, 11:48)
wndstorm_sqlaf
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You did read about the end of sql anywhere, correct? So this is how products are dying today, less and less investments in the qualtity of the product. Should you be concerned, perhaps, but you must anyway have a plan on where to go with your database in the next 18 months. We are currently sheduling the move from sql anywhere 17 to postgresql, and we are wondering what this will result performance wise, as we have many large tables in frequent use. 1
I mean, I know there hasn't been a new major release in a while, but per: https://help.sap.com/docs/SUPPORT_CONTENT/sqlany/3362971125.html ...isn't mainstream maintenance (which I believe would include security updates as it always has) available until December 2027? Our use of the software is for an application that will hopefully be decommissioned in late 2025, but you never know.
(17 Feb, 11:15)
wndstorm_sqlaf
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André, where did you read about the "end of SQL Anywhere"? Currently the EOL for SQL Anywhere is December 2027 (and it has been enhanced at least twice in the past), and according to SAP Product Availability Maxtrix, is even December 2028, see Chris Keating comment here... (If you are relating to the OEM edition, that's another issue, but that seems to be in discussion, see that thread, too.)
(17 Feb, 15:47)
Volker Barth
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Thank you Volker for that clarification. We're not using the "OEM edition" and I do see now the SAP PAM does indeed say 12/31/2028 for SQL Anywhere 17. With that aside, do you feel it's odd that's it's been this long without an EBF for Windows X64? I'm probably overthinking this, and it's probably stemming from us finally trying our best to stay on top of applying the latest EBF releases for security purposes.
(17 Feb, 18:48)
wndstorm_sqlaf
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In my understanding, SQL Anywhere EBFs are usually more about "functional bug fixes" and/or adaptions to changes in third-party software and less about security fixes. The whole version 17 readme file, which lists fixes since its introduction in 2015, contains only a few security topics so I do not expect that EBFs have to be published frequently to deal with that. Just my 2 cents. :)
(19 Feb, 03:30)
Volker Barth
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Yes, I agree, definitely more functional bug fixes. But, if there were a security issue to address, it would be in there I would assume. For example, an update to the embedded JVM.
(20 Feb, 11:03)
wndstorm_sqlaf
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The delay in the EBF release for SQL Anywhere 17.0 SP1 PL15 Build 7672, which is now available for Windows and Linux, was because of a change in compilers, which lead to a lengthy testing process. If there was a security issue that had required us to publish a fix during this time, we have a a process where we go back to the source code for the last released EBF, apply the fix for the security issue (it's often a 3rd party component), and then rebuild and retest the software. Since there is very little that has changed, the testing of that change is typically straightforward. If you look back on the SQL Anywhere releases, you can spot a "security" release as it is typically one build higher than the previous release. You'll see that we released builds 7058 and 7059 for Linux and Windows, and build 7059 was a security release. Reg
(21 Feb, 08:38)
Reg Domaratzki
Thanks Reg!
(21 Feb, 11:51)
wndstorm_sqlaf
Andre, please share your experience with Postgres, all alternatives I have looked into so far seem inferior to SQLA (at least for our use cases)
(23 Feb, 03:15)
Martin
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