Provisioning SAS GRID on AWS

[prashantprash17]

Greetings to Everyone!

I have been assigned a task to provision SAS grid configuration on AWS.

Can someone please help me on Pre-requisites and implication plans?

[AnandVyas]

There are lot of papers available online to implement Grid on AWS. Few links below.

SAS Grid on the AWS Cloud 

SAS Grid on AWS 

[prashantprash17]

Thanks for the reply Anand_V , I have gone through the documents now but I could not understand on if I have to create a very low load system like 2 Ec2 instance with just 8 CPU.

How should I seek to setup this configuration.

[MargaretC]

See if this paper answers your questions.  https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2020/4312-2020.pdf

[prashant170992]

Thanks for a quick response MargaretC,
The share document was helpful to enhance my understanding.
Can you please help me to understand while doing the template for QUICK START while provisioning the SAS on AWS where do I get the opportunity to specify the infrastructure resources to my setup Like Number of Grid Nodes we will allocate, EC2 Instances , CPU , Memory , Local Storage and Network?

Is it when we get options for when we select existing VPC or NEW VPC?

[MargaretC]

Which Quick Start are you referring to? The one in my paper only stands us a single instance to use with SAS. It is not designed to stand up a SAS Grid install.

[prashantprash17]

https://aws.amazon.com/quickstart/architecture/sas-grid/

As per the document by AWS the methodology they have shared to provision SAS on AWS could be easily done by using the quick start as mentioned in the link above I have shared.

While doing it we need to specify the configuration for the environment like how many grid nodes, cores etc but when in the process do we specify them. That's the information I am looking for.

[AnandVyas]

Hi @prashantprash17 

Paper shared by @MargaretC talks about considerations when you provision cloud infra to deploy SAS. You can review it to understand the performance impacts and choose the best option suited for you to provision infra in cloud where as the link shared by me is a quick-start to get SAS/Grid deployed up and running quickly on AWS.

[prashantprash17]

Ok... I hage got it now... Thanks Anand , just one question - If I am not using either of Lustre or IBM spectrum storage stack ,do we get option to select the other storage stack present in our environment?

[AnandVyas]

There is a section in the paper shared by Margaret "IF DEPLOYING SAS GRID MANAGER, WHICH SHARED FILE SYSTEM TO USE" . It lists down the storage solutions that gives optimal performance required for the solution. I think you should choose the recommended ones.

If you are going to edit the quick-start template, again you have to figure out the scripts on where it's being provisioned and change it yourself. If you are going by the approach of doing it by scratch you have the option of provisioning your storage using the AWS console.

[prashantprash17]

Thanks for the help Anand , Actually the plan being made not to use either of Amazon lustre or IBM spectrum Scale.

They want to use ZFS/EBS shared storage and that's the issue I am facing on how to provision that using quick start cloud formation template.

Can you help to advise other ways we can do this to install SAS on Linus platform over AWS after we have provisioned the AMI and connection made with ZFS/EBS.

[MargaretC]

Using ZFS for the shared file system is not advisable. Please understand you will be using it at your own risk since we do not know anyone else using it.

[prashantprash17]

This is something business has decided - I will put this point bro their notice -. Could please tell me what are the risks of Using ZFS here.

Also, if it's must (ZFS) , how can I proceed on that ?

[MargaretC]

We have had performance issues, no one to work with for support, stability issues, you name it.
You can proceed, you just cannot expect SAS technical support to assist you with issues that are related to the ZFS file system.

[prashantprash17]

Thanks MargaretC, I will flag this to business.

But to proceed with ZFS using Quick start is now the challenge I am facing.

If it's not the quick start then how can I proceed.