topic Re: What's the performance difference between Access/DB2 and Access/ODBC. in SAS Enterprise Guide

What's the performance difference between Access/DB2 and Access/ODBC.

deleted_user — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:29:09 GMT

Hi all, currently we are going to upgrade DB2 8.2.8 to DB2 9.5.3, but
the compatible SAS Access/DB2 version is 9.2, our local SAS technical
support says SAS 9.2 is not a stable versioin and suggests us not to
upgrade SAS to 9.2, so we have a plan to use SAS ACCESS/ODBC to access
our DB2 9.5.3 data, there are two questions:
1.Is SAS 9.2 a stable version.
2.Is there any performance reduction when we use ODBC interface over
the DB2 native interface, suppose all data to process is located in
the DB2 server.

Re: What's the performance difference between Access/DB2 and Access/ODBC.

RichardH_sas — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:34:42 GMT

I don't know much about stability SAS/ACCESS for DB2 stability, so I'll punt on that one. I will say I haven't heard of any problems related to SAS/ACCESS stuff in 9.2, but I'm not a SAS/ACCESS expert.

In terms of performance, there will be a significant impact using SAS/ACCESS for ODBC instead of SAS/ACCESS for DB2 when reading large tables. A SAS consultant I work with said the SAS/ACCESS products for specific databases (e.g. DB2) tend to be 4-10 times faster than the generic SAS/ACCESS for ODBC. If applicable, the database-specific SAS/ACCESS products also allow bulk-loading. This is roughly where my knowledge runs dry. 🙂

Hope that helps. I'm still someone suspicious of the claim that SAS 9.2 is not a "stable" version -- I'd have to know specifically what you were trying to do with it. It performs without a flaw on my machine. It might be worth a call to SAS Tech Support to get a sense from them if they know of any problems with upgrading. http://support.sas.com/techsup/contact/

Re: What's the performance difference between Access/DB2 and Access/ODBC.

sbb — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:02:36 GMT

SAS 9.2 (PHASE 1) on z/OS maybe (note that you failed to mention your OS platform), but now SAS 9.2 (PHASE 2) is available, and I understand that other than some prior installation quirks for native z/OS clients (j-- just say NO THANKS to the Windows-based front-end GUI for a mainframe install, please!), I would highly recommend and encourage installing the most current SAS 9.2 system, at your earliest convenience.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

Re: What's the performance difference between Access/DB2 and Access/ODBC.

deleted_user — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:24:29 GMT

Thanks, we are using SAS on Windows Server 2003, and I will try to upgrade to 9.2 s2.