Installing SAS University Edition with SQL Express Server

[pella88]

Hello,

I have installed SQL Express 2014 with AdventureWorks 2014 database. My idea is to install VMWare and SAS University Edition in order to learn some SAS and practice it at my home.

My first and most important question is: Is it possible to connect SAS University Edition with SQL Express 2014 database?

I am currently downloadint SAS UE, and will install VMWare and SAS UE as soon as it is finished, however, all this work will be in vain if I cannot connect it to database on which I would practice.

Of course, if you have another solution, I am open for your recommendation.

Best regards,

[Reeza]

My first and most important question is: Is it possible to connect SAS University Edition with SQL Express 2014 database?

Not at this time.

I'm not particularly sure what benefit you gain in connecting to the SQL server. Is there something in particular you're interested in learning about, or do you just wish to mimic a possible working environment.

SAS also offers two training courses that are free and provide data to work with, in addition to an abundance of free data available online.

[pella88]

Exactly as you stated, my idea is to create a working environment. I am about to embark on a job opportunity where we have a pretty large database, and knowledge of SAS is essential for large number of reporting purposes.

My idea was to have a connection to the database in order to have data for running certain analysis on them.

I have never used SAS, so don't know it's possibilities in terms of data import and similar, but will investigate it now that the download is done.

I will look into the courses you are referring to.

[Reeza]

What you could do is export the AdventureWorks table into text files and then import them into SAS. Not ideal, but after the import it would be similar to a connection. You'd miss out on certain issues you might face, but you'd get the gist of programming in SAS for reporting and analytics.

A full version of SAS can access almost any data type, though I find the support for JSON lacking at the moment, IMO.

[pella88]

That is definitely an option, however, it would take me long time to export all tables, but will probably do it like this. I have also several databases in Access/SQL files (baseball database for years 2001 - 2014), should I assume same approach is needed for these databases also.

[Reeza]

I don't know if it you can with Access DB...I've been meaning to try that one. From the docs it didn't look like you necessarily could. They do provide the SAS/ACCESS license though, so it's worth testing.