Product Information
SAP® Adaptive Server Enterprise and SAP IQ software: The Next Generation
As there have been several frequently asked questions regarding SAP ASE, SAP IQ ad SAP Replication Server here are the top ones.
What is SAP announcing?
SAP is committed to the long-term enhancement, maintenance, and support of SAP® Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP ASE), SAP IQ software, and SAP Replication Server (sometimes referred to as Sybase products). SAP plans the following:
- A new release of SAP ASE (version 16) is scheduled to be available in 2020.
- Sybase product releases will be supported beyond the published end–of–maintenance date of 2025.
- SAP is investing in new managed cloud services for SAP ASE and SAP IQ as part of the SAP HANA® Cloud data platform.
[UPDATED 23rd April 2020
SAP is pleased to announce that in addition to SAP ASE 16 SP04 which is planned for release in Q4 2020 that we plan to release SAP ASE 16.1 in Q4 2022 which will be accompanied by an end-of-maintenance date of 31st December 2030. Further underlining the bright and secure future for SAP ASE.]
Please see the related SAP News Story here.
What is SAP’s commitment to customers of SAP ASE, SAP IQ, and SAP Replication Server?
SAP is committed to supporting all SAP database customers and will ensure customers continue to benefit from our full database portfolio, both on-premise and in the cloud on the new SAP HANA Cloud database platform.
Is support for on-premise SAP ASE, SAP IQ and SAP Replication Server ending in 2025?
No, support is not ending and we are committed to supporting additional releases beyond the published end–of–maintenance date of 2025. Our customers will have the benefit of a long support cycle and the assurance of multiple years of support. SAP announces future product versions, options, and maintenance extensions with significant lead times in consideration of our customers’ changing requirements.
The intention of publishing the dates for the end of mainstream maintenance in the product availability matrix (PAM) is to provide customers with the confidence of long-term support for their product. However, outside of SAP, this has been misinterpreted as being the end of life for the product.
What investments are being made in new managed cloud services for SAP ASE and SAP IQ?
SAP is making additional investments in SAP ASE, SAP IQ, and SAP Replication Server as part of our recently announced SAP HANA Cloud offering. Details and delivery dates will be published soon. SAP HANA Cloud will allow existing customers of SAP ASE and SAP IQ to move their on-premise workloads to the cloud:
- SAP HANA Cloud will include a managed extreme–online–transaction–processing (XOLTP) service (based on SAP ASE) and a relational data lake service (based on SAP IQ).
- Customers will be able to move existing SAP ASE and SAP IQ landscapes (including SAP Replication Server) into SAP HANA Cloud, preserving compatibility with the current releases.
- Customers will benefit from the additional services offered by SAP HANA Cloud – such as data virtualization or advanced analytics capabilities – through one, simple gateway to all their data.
How will the planned SAP ASE and SAP IQ cloud services fit in with SAP HANA Cloud?
These services will be part of SAP HANA Cloud. SAP HANA Cloud is a cloud solution that combines all of SAP’s data and analytics capabilities as one set of interconnected services. SAP HANA Cloud provides simplicity to users by offering a fast and simple interface, and flexibility for administrators to freely optimize the data landscape. Providing SAP ASE, SAP IQ, and SAP Replication Server services in SAP HANA Cloud provides customers with a managed solution, elastic scaling, on-demand deployment, and consumption-based pricing.
When will road maps for cloud offerings be available?
Along with the additional investment, planning is underway to bring SAP ASE and SAP IQ into SAP HANA Cloud. Look for road map feature–sets and release dates to be published in December 2019.
Summary
SAP is committed to the long-term enhancement, maintenance, and support of SAP ASE, SAP IQ, and SAP Replication Server. SAP plans to release new cloud managed services as part of SAP HANA Cloud. Customers can choose to maintain their on-premise investment and incrementally utilize the cloud for efficiency and additional services in SAP HANA Cloud. Alternatively, customers will be able to directly move their landscapes to SAP HANA Cloud using these new services.
Hi Mark
We intend to provide customers the choice of remaining on-premise or moving to the cloud.
In terms of Roadmaps, both the on-premise and cloud will have roadmaps which we will continue to update. That includes SQL Anywhere which whilst not explicitly mentioned above continues to be fully supported.
Thanks
Neil
Hi
After almost 30 years of working in Sybase engineering, Bill McDermott, helped by Gerrit Kazmaier in Europe decided to get rid of all the old engineers. In theory, Adaptive Server was a dead product , 2025 was the last year ASE would be sold and in order to sustain it, they only needed a small team of junior guys in India. So, everyone was fired leaving Adaptive Server Engineering with less than 60 people, most of them juniors.
Bill McDermott said that the company needed young people able to understand current market needs. Apparently, engineers in their 50's 60's are unable to understand anything about artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, containers and all that stuff that is the state of the art, and it's better to hire only juniors (who will leave the company in 2 years after having wasted the time of those seniors who have been training them). So, SAP is one of the very few companies where the experience is a handicap instead of a plus.
Now, they are talking about having ASE back ? Are they hiring again ? Did Hana fail ? Who will resurrect ASE ?
Cheers
Carlos Ruiz
As mentioned in the blog we are committed to ASE and will invest, support and sell beyond 2025.
I think the public interest in Sybase is dwindling as the older engineers retire. If I were a young engineer searching for a SAP-related database job, a search for Sybase ASE, IQ, or Repserver would turn up nothing compared to HANA.
I have noted from SAP itself that HANA is capable of doing everything that ASE could do, so why use ASE? It cannot be for career or technology purposes, So why use ASE? If you can answer this question in a realistic and believable way, then I think you might have something.
If you really want to bring back Sybase, then perhaps the remaining Sybase engineers at SAP should consider a way to promote their own product, such as an increased presence in tutorials, blog posts, forums, speaking events, and positive marketing in general. Firing key Sybase engineers is not a convincing way to promote the product.
These vague posts about Sybase past 2025 are not very helpful.