PC SAS License needed for SAS/Connect to Unix

[slolay]

Hi

I work in a company which is fading/has faded out PC SAS usage to go to a UNIX platform to save costs.

Can someone please tell me if I can use a standalone SAS/Connect license to develop code in PC SAS and submit it to the UNIX server? Do I still need a full PC SAS License?

Currently I am using a text editor to develop my code and then cut and pasting it to the not-so-user-friendly Unix editor.  This is cumbersome and not efficient so looking for a smarter text editor which can link directly to Unix and run sas.

Alternatively, if anyone knows of a user-friendly editor which can link and submit code directly to Unix I would appreciate if they could share it. Or if there is a better UNIX SAS editor than standard one that comes with SAS.

Many thanks for reading

Steve

[LinusH]

What portions of SAS do you develop programs in, just Base SAS?

No, like most other SAS modules, it sits on top of Base SAS. It also requires that Connect is licensed on the server.

Alternatives for a nicer user experience:

• Enterprise Guide, requires at least SAS/Integration Technologies license and installation on the server.
• X-term emulator, on your client.

[Doc_Duke]

Enterprise Guide 5.1 is really nice about syntax help.

Another option is to use a standalone Unix editor.  You can then either cut-n-paste into interactive SAS or submit jobs in batch.   We use EMACS or XEMACS with an x-windows interface into Unix.  We have also installed the ESS (EMACS Speaks Statistics) as an add-on; some love it, others hate it.  I think that it has some nice functionality, but not nearly as much as EG 5.1.  EMACS and XEMACS are part of the GNU public license, so there is no up-front cost. 

In addition, I use EMACS on the PC so I can have the same editor both places.  EMACS is more keyboard oriented than most PC editors, so it has a steeper learning curve (O'Reilly Books has some nice reference material).  The flip side is that it is much more powerful for editing and working on large sets of code.

Doc Muhlbaier

Duke

[Andre]

Slolay,

our local solution with linux without sas  (or sas connect)  is a mix of

-mount on your ressource on the pc  under W7  in order to view the datas and programs files

-install of Nx solution on server with  a free   Nx client

you have then the view on the sas linux windows

but if you create a key like     gsub buf=XTERM          as your clipboard is common to the two worlds

-i am able to work with a windows editor like crimson editor or notepad++ or pspad

and select/copy a part of code

and from inside the sas pgm editor linux screen,  push on choiced key combination to submit that part

This is a trick resolving the lack of right clic on the sas pgm linux editor

HTH

Andre

[slolay]

Hi All

Many thanks for your replies.

We do have EG in the company so will look into this.  The cut and paste option is what we do now and I am trying to get away from that.

@andre: I don;t really understand what you are saying TBH.  Not really a technical person, get scared just by the word 'mount' :-).  If you want to ellaborate then please carry on but I don;t see copying the data to the windows environment a feasible idea here.

Thanks
Steve

[Andre]

Hi

Linus has show you the choices between Eg with another sas product (with cost) and  an X emulator  without SAS on your pc

Our linux administrator has build a mount access to "my" directory on linux so that i can see and work with the files

in windows  (technically your administrator has to mount a samba server under linux)

of course those data  have to be submitted to the SAS on the linux server

Therefore our Nx a X emulator permits me to open an interactive sas session (all the screens with the red mark)

The topic about the trick i was indicating  is shown in the whole screen capture:

-i have an open Pspad with some selected lines of sas code (gray and yellow as selected and copied)

-i have left the sas-keys window open in order to confirm that i have a CTRL+S key with the "gsub buff=XTERM" content

in the SAS pgm editor i have nothing

but my Pspad selection was submitted through the action of the CTRL+S once the pgm editor screen was selected

so the result were appearing after : a proc freq result.!

I hope this show you clearer what was explaining :

if you don't like the pgm editor under linux , you  are able to submit 'from an enriched  text editor under windows'

HTH

Andre

[MAdams]

To edit code on PC-SAS and rsubmit to a server, you will require licenses for PC-SAS and SAS/Connect. SAS/Connect will also need to be licensed on the server. Many sites are disabling telnet for security reasons. SAS/Connect uses telnet so if telnet is disables at your site you would need to use IP Tunneling with SAS/Connect for the connection. The best alternative is SAS Enterprise Guide to edit code and have it run on the server. (Much better editor than PC-SAS.) You can save your code within the the EG project or in an external .sas file allowing it to be run in batch mode on the server. Like the PC-SAS editor, you can also highlight and run segments of code. Other alternatives are editors that use ftp or sftp (ftp is also a security risk) examples would be UltaEdit or Slick Edit or there is your curent method of cut and paste.

[SASKiwi]

Please bear in mind if you wish to explore EG as an option you will need to have a SAS metadata server environment set up and SAS Management Console client installed to create and maintain your metadata. I believe this applies from SAS 9.2 onwards. It's a major learning curve if you haven't been through this before. If you already have a full "SAS BI Server" set up then no problem.

With full desktop SAS and SAS/CONNECT you can avoid the whole metadata issue, but as this is SAS's strategic direction you will probably have to jump on board at some point.