Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn about this topic in specific relation to open source Kubernetes.
You will learn:
The questions from the Q&A segment held at the end of the webinar are listed below and the slides from the webinar are attached.
Can SAS Viya be installed on OpenShift on AWS, and will that be supported?
When considering the deployment and subsequent use of Viya on a Kubernetes platform refer to SAS’s Support statements first. There are 2 levels of support: Standard Support and Limited Support. As of February 2023, only Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) 4.9 - 4.11 on VMware vSphere 7.0.1 or later is available with Standard Support. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform on other platforms would be considered as Limited Support. SAS continua...
Reason for my OpenShift question is our Security doesn't want to use EKS on AWS and OpenShift is the only alternative.
It sounds like the question is an architecture related question where one aspect “security” is a driver when choosing which Kubernetes platform to choose. Perhaps the customer organization can speak with AWS and register their security concerns about EKS.
How can I migrate Terraform scripts to CloudFormation scripts?
Translation of Terraform scripts to AWS CloudFormation scripts is beyond the scope of this presentation. SAS’s infrastructure provisioning tools (aka IaC: Azure, AWS, GCP, Opensource), are currently built using Terraform. But if you want to provision your cluster using CloudFormation, it's not an issue. SAS’s provided IaC tools help the customer to provision their cluster, but customers can also use their own tools to provision their Kubernetes cluster in the Cloud. So, using CloudFormation or the even the Cloud portal to create the Cluster infrastructure is possible.
Please explain how many node pools and how big they are in SAS Viya on Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
The answer to this question is: 1 CAS node pool, 1 Compute node pool, 1 stateful node pool, 1 stateless node pool, 1 system node pool. In each node pool there is one node by default, but it can automatically scale up to 5 nodes. The CAS Server is configured for SMP. The instance types are listed in the documentation links. We will request that additional details you have raised in this question be added to the documentation or FAQs. The relevant documentation links are:
SAS Viya on Microsoft Azure FAQ
SAS Communities and SAS Viya on Microsoft Azure
With previous SAS versions (9.x), we could go through the EEC team for environment sizing recommendations. With Kubernetes and the new Viya, how should we approach environment sizing?
You can still contact the SAS World Wide Sizing Team through the local SAS office to get help with appropriate recommendations to meet the need of your workload in SAS Viya. In addition to or instead of using the World Wide Sizing team, customer organizations may want to consider an iterative approach with Viya to determine the right and type of infrastructure for their specific use cases. One of the benefits of using Kubernetes in a Cloud Platform like Azure, GCP and AWS is the speed and flexibility at which the required infrastructure can be built, modified, and deleted/removed using infrastructure as code (aka IaC). For some customers they may wish to start on the small side of the estimate and then grow/expand the infrastructure to meet the demands of the user community over time. So, combining the results from SAS World Wide Sizing and iterative evaluations will allow customers to identify what infrastructure is required for their needs.
Regarding node pools, for example stateless node pool assume there are 3 nodes, do we install all the stateless application in one pod in one node and the same will be repeated for all the 3 nodes? Or how does this node pooling actually work?
Your question relates to the placement of pods. This falls under the category of a Kubernetes concept termed “workload placement”. We recommend you watch these series of short YouTube videos “SAS Viya Topologies” to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=viya+topolgies
Does SAS get a lot of pushbacks from customers who don't use Kubernetes or don't have Kubernetes resources?
SAS provides various options for customers who want Viya 4 but may not be ready to host or manage themselves, or generally not in a position to move to Viya 4. This includes using SAS Cloud (SAS hosted) and Remote Managed Services provided by SAS. In addition, customers could work with technical partners to provide a hosted environment. Customers typically explain their modernization/roadmaps with SAS and then a plan can be put in place for an agreed approach going forward.
Is RHEL also possible as underlying Linux OS, instead of Ubuntu?
If the customer is thinking of deploying upstream opensource Kubernetes and is happy to use their own provisioning methods/code, they can choose a flavour & version of the Linux operating system that can meet the requirements of upstream opensource Kubernetes then they can proceed. The requirements for SAS Viya Platform and Upstream Source Kubernetes is documented here. If a customer prefers to use SAS’s Infrastructure as Code tools to deploy and Upstream Open Source Kubernetes cluster they will be required to use Ubuntu Linux LTS 20.04 or 22.04 (correct at March 2nd, 2023).
How do you implement 60 tenants in Viya 4?
The SAS Viya platform can be deployed with multi-tenancy enabled. The use of multitenancy can be for several use cases. Without knowing any specific details for your use case(s) we recommend you speaking a SAS technical representative or SAS approved partner in your area to discuss what options are available for your use case. You can also try asking a more detailed version of your question on SAS Communities. Current known limitations to Multi-tenancy are listed here.
SAS Viya Blog Collection on SAS Communities
Running SAS Viya in Upstream Open Source Kubernetes – part 1
Running SAS Viya in Upstream Open source Kubernetes – part 2
Running SAS Viya in Upstream Open source Kubernetes – part 3
Moving from SAS®9 to SAS® Viya®
Please see additional resources in the attached slide deck.
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