topic Running DDE on SAS Grid? in Administration and Deployment

Running DDE on SAS Grid?

new4new — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:00:54 GMT

Dear SAS community,

We are migrating from SAS on the MS Windows NET_ASRV platform to SAS Grid.

One of the issues we are facing is running DDE on SAS Grid.

We are using SAS/Excel DDE to convert formatted with custom templates multi-sheet SAS ODS tagsets.ExcelXP XML files into native Excel.

Is it possible to run DDE on SAS Grid?

What are other alternatives to create native Excel files with options available in tagsets.ExcelXP that can be used on SAS Grid?

Thank you,

new4new

Re: Running DDE on SAS Grid?

LinusH — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 10:00:51 GMT

First, what platform will you use for the grid. If non-windows, I hardly think this will work at all.

Secondly, using DDE doesn't sound like a typically grid application, so either, you might want to find a path in you solution to execute jobs "on the side" of the grid, in a more traditional manner.

I'm no expert in Excel tagsets, but is it critical for you ta have native Excel files?

There are, as might know, alternatives that could be considered, such as loading via Libname Excel engine, or accessing reports via Add-in for MS Office which let's you do some extensive formatting of your Excel report.

Re: Running DDE on SAS Grid?

new4new — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 23:38:48 GMT

Hi Linus, thank you for your prompt response!

Our SAS grid will be on Windows.

I am using DDE in our current Windows Server environment and it works seamlessly.

DDE might be an ‘exotic' solution, however, executing system commands (.cmd, .bat. vbs) from SAS is very common technique.

There is a VBScript alternative: http://support.sas.com/kb/43/496.html and I have successfully 'implemented' it in our current environment. It still needs some tuning ( i.e., wait/sleep time calculated based on file sizes) but it works.

Is it possible to call a separate VBScript file from SAS on the SAS grid?

Thanks!

Re: Running DDE on SAS Grid?

LinusH — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 08:38:56 GMT

I don't know if there any limitations/restrictions for executing VBscript when on the grid, you might just have to test it to know.

Still, can't see this as a grid type of execution. You should be able to launch a "classic" SAS session to run this macro, if it shoulldn't work with your grid configuration.