RobbieFreddie Tracker

Re: Future plans for Table names greater than 32 characters

RobbieFreddie — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:47:16 GMT

Thanks Doc@Duke for the suggestion!

I took your advice and created a SASware Ballot. I will post a link to the SASware Ballot so anyone who reads this discussion can vote in favor for the idea!

Future plans for Table names greater than 32 characters

RobbieFreddie — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:07:13 GMT

I've seen this point brought up, and searching on it returns many results. I understand the documentation and limitations that SAS currently has in having 32 character names, and I can live with that. The thing is, the data world is continuing to evolve, and mentioning in project meetings the requirement to have less than 32 characters for tables that will have a SAS piece, gets me strange looks.

Question is, are there any good rumors out there, or plans to bump table names up to, let's say, 128 characters? Like many others, table names greater than 32 characters are becoming more and more common.

Again, just looking for any rumors to when this will be addressed in the future.

Cheers!

Anyone wanting to learn more about planned deployments?

RobbieFreddie — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:23:51 GMT

Signed up and ready to go!

Thanks for the info!

Solaris Performance issues

RobbieFreddie — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:21:03 GMT

I'm curious if you have many libraries being auto assigned? I'm troubleshooting some slow startup (connecting to issues) as well. I've narrowed it down in our case to either the amount or method of pre-assigning libraries, or the issue we have with our /saswork directory (WORK library in EG and temporary space). We have way to many users for only having one /saswork directory setup on one single disk (I/O bottleneck where disk stays 100% busy, so new jobs starting up have to wait in line before being issued temporary work space).

Is the startup time slow even with very little going on on the server?

Memcache on Windows 7 with UAC

RobbieFreddie — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:16:27 GMT

Here is a bit from a link I found on SAS's website: http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/63285/HTML/default/viewer.htm#winperform.htm

Specifying the MEMLIB and MEMCACHE Options in 64-Bit Windows Environments

Sixty-four bit processing in Windows operating environments uses 16 terabytes (TB) of virtual address space, so in these environments, extended memory is not needed. SAS uses the conventional memory that is available to support the MEMLIB and MEMCACHE options.

CAUTION:: It is possible to exhaust system memory, and thus cause system failure.
You can use the MEMMAXSZ option to limit the amount of system memory that SAS allocates for the MEMLIB and MEMCACHE options.

To use the MEMLIB and MEMCACHE options, ensure that the operating environment meets the following requirements:

Intel or Intel-compatible 64-bit processor (Itanium or later).
Any 64-bit version of Windows.
4 GB of RAM or more; you might have better performance if you use more than 8 GB.
SAS 9.2 for Windows.

Then follow these steps:

Set the total amount of memory for memory-based libraries by using the MEMMAXSZ system option. See MEMMAXSZ System Option: Windows.
Set the memory block size for memory-based libraries by using the MEMBLKSZ system option. See MEMBLKSZ System Option: Windows.

Specifying the Local Security Settings

In 32-bit environments starting with Windows XP Professional and above, the Lock pages in memory security setting must be set, so that each user who is running SAS has access to the extended memory. If a user does not have the correct permissions, then SAS will issue a warning message to the log.

System administrators can set the local security settings through the Start Menu. To set this value

Open the Control Panel.
Double click Administrative Tools.
Double click Local Security Policy. The Local Security Settings window will open.
Double click Local Policies.
Double click User Rights Assignment.
Double click Lock pages in memory. The Local Security Policy Setting window will open.
Click Add. The Select User or Groups window will open.
Select the user IDs or name of the group of users who need to run SAS with access to the extended memory.
Click OK in the Select User or Groups window.
Click OK in the Local Security Policy window.
Note: In the Local Security Policy window, you might see two check boxes: the Local Security Setting check box and the Effective Policy Setting check box. If the Effective Policy Setting check box is not selected for the users that you added, you will need to reboot your computer so that the new security settings will take effect.

"User does not have appropriate authorization level for library 'library name'"

RobbieFreddie — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:07:24 GMT

Do you have the accounts tab under "User Manager" within SAS Management Console correct? Namely the logins defined for the user having the issues?

Received the following error: "ERROR: Catalog SASHELP.DW does not exist"

RobbieFreddie — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:48:57 GMT

As silly as this may sound, I would check that you have properly installed this SAS/Warehouse feature, and have it properly configured. If you have the administrative perspective, check out the following link:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/waug/59817/PDF/default/waug.pdf

(Page 72 mentions some settings)

Either it's not installed, or not setup correctly, and therfore it cannot find the catalog SASHELP.DW

This is my guess so far ^ 🙂

Mid-tier (web server) rebooting slow

RobbieFreddie — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:46:00 GMT

When you say restart the web services, are you speaking of a WebSphere instance ? Don't list all your details here, but the power behind the machine that is hosting the Mid-tier (web-server) can affect the start up time greatly. I would also find the log file locations for WebSphere (or whatever platform you are using) and "tail -f" (if in Unix) the log file while the restart is going on. You can watch as the start up appends logging information to the log file, and you may be able to notice where it's spending most of it's time, and if it is having any major issues or errors.

If you are in Unix or Windows would probably make a big difference on your approach to diagnosing the problem here, but I'd advise the log files as a starting point 🙂

SAS Enterprise Miner, adding Text Miner 9.1.3/9.2/9.3

RobbieFreddie — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:21:23 GMT

So in the fun world we live in, and to make a long story short, we have made the decision at my organization to purchase Text Miner to add to our SAS product line up. The fun part comes, in that we have a 9.1.3 environment(where the decision was made to purchase Text Miner), a 9.2 environment(which we are wrapping up testing and moving users over too), and we will be setting up a 9.3 environment soon (test stage).

This may be a silly question, but I'm assuming that we will have to work with the guys at SAS to have all 3 different media sets, plus having a unique SID file for each SAS version environment? I know there are notable differences going from the 9.1.3 to the 9.2, and I'm reading documentation on going from 9.2 to 9.3. We would be satisfied I'm sure if we just load this on the 9.2 environment and move forward from there.

I think I mainly wanted to start this discussion so I can post again later with details on how we approached this situation, so that it might help others out in the near future. If you have been in a similar situation, give me some input! If you'd like of course.

Windows Explorer does not recognize SAS programs since I installed SAS 9.3

RobbieFreddie — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:00:38 GMT

Have you checked the File Type options for windows? If you have a window open in explorer, you should be able to go to:

Tools > Folder Options > File Types (tab)

Did the associated file types get messed up or changed?

You can set the extension to the SAS program that opens it, this should fix the issue, if I understand the problem correctly. 🙂

Good luck!

Deploying SAS clients to a large number users

RobbieFreddie — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:52:25 GMT

We have similar issues with creating "builds" for the SAS software in my organization. 9.2 builds seemed to be a lot better than 9.1.3, but there still have been issues with the software builds we have created and distributing them. (The builds are how a part of our IT department manages software installs, so they want SAS to fit into there method of installs) We created response files following the directions from the link below:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/biig/62611/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n05023intelplatform00install.htm

Even with this method, which I'm connecting the dots with jasonlosh's response, is that the install has many redistributable's that can affect what is installed. These pre-reqs vary from machine to machine greatly from my experiance. (Installed on 8 machines, and I think only 2 machines had the same pre-reqs installed, other than that they all had different lists of pre-reqs to install)

What would be nice is having a response file built for typical SAS BI installs, but having the pre-install (system checker) run dynamically. So if you perform the response file install on the 100 machines, and they have different pre requirements (redistributable installs), it can account for them. All of this under a "silent" isntall would be nice.

We are currently working on this matter as well, and will re-post if we find any better methods of performing these installs

One of the first discussions!

RobbieFreddie — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:37:04 GMT

Yea, the gentleman that installed the SAS 9.2 right before I got here mentioned that he had to redo the ports #s for this setup. It is nice using the Lev1 Lev2 options within the SAS 9.2 install now. I'm going to add the Connect Server and Spawner this evening or weekend and see if it helps on some performance issues.

One of the first discussions!

RobbieFreddie — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:58:25 GMT

I think we have just about every databses within our orginization. In regards to SAS, most of them are DB2 or SAS.

I am not aware of the METAAUTOINIT option. Looking into this right now.

Thanks

One of the first discussions!

RobbieFreddie — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:48:27 GMT

After checking the DeploymentRegistry.html, I did find that it was installed, or included inthe SID file. The plan file selected must have been the issue then.

To continue on though, most of our SAS users are connecting to this UNIX based machine from PCs. The saswork directory (where temporary EG projects are being stored) indicates that the jobs are being run on the server correct? The gathering and manipulation of data is all taking place on the server I'd hope. Can you think of any issues with setting up the Connect Server and Spawner within metadata in relation to having a 9.1.3 server on the same machine? I'm sure having different ports than the 9.1.3 would be all that is needed, but figured I'd ask the question anyways.

So in a nut shell, I do believe we want users to run jobs on the server (is this considered the backend of the server?)

I might play with this more over the weekend and test.

Sorry for the elementry questions in advance, I will reiterate that I am in "training" 🙂

One of the first discussions!

RobbieFreddie — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:43:41 GMT

I find it interesting to be one of the first discussions to be posted underneath this area! I feel so special!

I am a novice system administrator and have been working on and soaking up the SAS world for the past 3 months. I've had the chance to do several 9.2 installs on the server side, and client side of SAS BI technologies. I'm learning more and more about configuring and deploying SAS out of the box, and helping it to fit into our proprietary environment here.

I did have something to discuss and bring up here, in regards to deploying SAS 9.2 side by side with a 9.1.3 on the same server.

We have a development environment and are currently finishing up the migration from 9.1.3 to 9.2. There have been lots of modifications and changes that had to be made, and replicated from the 9.1.3 to the 9.2.

One concern I have noticed today, is that the 9.2 environment, did not have the SAS/CONNECT component "installed". I've read up on the functions of SAS/CONNCET, and the Connect spawner server, and have not determined if it is a vital component to our environment here. We have many different test/stage/development/production "sandboxes" and I have noticed that all of them generally have the SAS/Connect server setup.

When depolying SAS 9.2, on the same box as 9.1.3, could there have been conflicts with having them on the same box?

Does it hurt to not have (or to have) the SAS/Connect server setup in Management Console, even if it's full functions are not being utilized? (or is it a needed core component?)

I have noticed performance issues with logging onto the SAS 9.2 server, and the refreshing of libraries are considerably slower than in the 9.1.3 environment.

Anyone recommend some default settings that could affect log-in performance, and library performance issues for SAS 9.2?

Would love to get some input and discussions going on best practices to SAS Deployment.

Look forward to discussing!