What's new with SAS at UNC: Servers, Business Intelligence, and Visual Analytics

Jonathan Pletzke, ITS2014 CTC Retreat

Topic

• Hear about and see the latest SAS solutions in use at UNC-CH. In support of ConnectCarolina and InfoPorte for administrative data, two SAS server based platforms have been installed:– SAS Business Intelligence, which is being used for Extract-

Transform-Load (ETL) manipulation of data– SAS Visual Analytics, which is being used for reporting and

visualization of data• Hear about the high speed and high capacity of the

server based solutions, along with how they are being used and benefiting UNC Chapel Hill.

SAS Business Intelligence Platform

• Windows based system, 20 cores physical servers, with special storage and much RAM

• Evicted from VMWare virtual environment for excess I/O load

• Nightly “race” to finish transforming data before morning

SAS Visual Analytics Platform

• Linux based system, 20 cores physical servers in grid (TKGrid is not the same as SAS Grid)

• Hadoop for data storage on grid• In-Memory Analytics• 256 cores at 3Ghz, 3.6TB RAM, ~17TB Disk– split into Demo, Test, and Production

• Web UI encourages non-traditional SAS users• Complex queries complete in seconds even for

massive data sets

Server based SAS

Data Tier (User identified external to

the SAS system)

•Oracle Databases•MySQL Databases•MSSQL Databases•Networked Attached Files•SAS Files•MS-Access Files•Excel Files•CSV Files•Other Files

Processing Tier (SAS App Server)

XLARGE Servers

•SAS Workspace Server

•SAS Pooled Workspace Server (used by Web processes)

•SAS Stored Process Server (used to encapsulate existing or new SAS programs written in SAS)

•1 Dev•1 Test•2 or more prod (for load and failure)

MetaData Tier (SAS MetaData Server)

Small Servers

•All SAS Programs talk to this from all tiers•1 dev•1 test•3 or more prod (for HA)

Middle Tier (SAS Web Server)

XLarge Servers

•SAS Web Server•SAS Web Application Server•SAS Content Server

•SAS Web Report Studio•SAS Information Delivery Portal•SAS BI Dashboard and Portlets•SAS Help Viewer•SAS Environment Manager•1 dev•1 test•3 or more prod (for load and HA)

Visual Analytics Tier (Similar to Web)XXLarge Servers

•1 demo (test)•8 production (for load and HA)

Clients•Windows PC•Web Browser•SAS DI Studio•SAS Enterprise Guide•SAS Addin for MS-Office•SAS Information Map Studio•SAS Management Console

•Mac •Web Browser•Mobile (iPhone, iPad, Andoid)•Apps

SAS BI – ETL Example

• Preparing data, converting, calculating, joining, anything

• Swiss Army Knife - Can input from almost anything, output to almost anything.

• Get data from Postgres Manual CSV extract, transform columns

• Create a SAS Data set for import to SAS VA Hadoop and In-Memory

DI Studio

DI Studio Transformation

SAS VA – Reporting and Analytics Example

• Import data from SAS Data set into Hadoop and Memory using SAS Visual Data Builder

• Explore Data with Visual Analytics Explorer• Create Report with Visual Analytics Designer• Consume Report with Visual Analytics Viewer• Monitor Environment with Visual Analytics

Administrator

Visual Data Builder

Visual Analytics Explorer

Visual Analytics Designer

Visual Analytics Viewer

Visual Analytics Administrator

Questions