Run SAS University on OSX with VM that does not require kernel extensions (VMWare or VirtualBox)

[mattjolley]

I work at a hospital which is blocking kernel extensions which appear to be required to for SAS University (really VMware or Virtualbox) to work.  

This is a new policy and they are not budging.  I am an academic professor within the hospital with a university affiliation and as such was using SAS University in VMWare Fusion until this new policy was instituted. 

The result is similar errors to what folks get when they don't approve the kext install in Security, except the option to approve never comes up (because the hospital is blocking it at an enterprise level in their distribution/admin setup).

Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.

Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded.

I am very bummed.  They can give me access to a hospital administered virtual machine running SAS on it, but that only works in the hospital, whereas SAS University was SO flexible when I was not in the hospital.

Is there anything I can do?

[ChrisBrooks]

Hi @mattjolley and welcome to the community.

Have you considered SAS OnDemand for Academics? This is entirely cloud based so you could run it from another location and despite its name is available to all lifelong learners. You can find out more about it at this link -> https://www.sas.com/en_gb/software/on-demand-for-academics.html

[mattjolley]

Thank You.  I will look into it.

What are the differences?  Can you still have local files?  Things get tricky when working with the potential for patient identifiers.

That was what was nice about SAS University is the files stayed local (data).

[ChrisBrooks]

Unfortunately no - you’ll have to upload the files. That may well be a deal breaker for you unless you can anonymise the data.

[Reeza]

I am an academic professor within the hospital with a university affiliation

Which University? Many have an agreement that lets you use SAS for a very, very low price. At my institution it was $39/year for the full version, so no VM needed. 

It may be worth looking into. 

[mattjolley]

We do have academic pricing on individual faculty SAS FOR WINDOWS, and a site license FOR WINDOWS.

The institutions allows Windows machines or Macs.  Over half the staff choose Mac but the OS/machine is administered at the enterprise level (or it can't be on the network).   I have a Mac laptop for research and we are familiar with SAS for statistics.

To run regular SAS 9,4 etc you need Windows.

To run regular Windows on a Mac you either need to dual boot, or have a VM running windows, with SAS for Windows in in that.

Or you could use a VM based, platform independent based product like SAS Studio/University.  It skipped the windows layer and allowed SAS with just the SAS VM/browser on your Mac.  It was AWESOME.

There is now a recent change that you can't run VMWare or Virtualbox locally(have enterprise rules that block the kernel extension (kext) install needed to run), hence eliminating these options, and with it the best SAS options for OSX (University/Studio).  It also eliminated running Windows in a VM on your machine, with SAS on it (at least with VMWare/Virtualbox). 

Their solution is to have VMs running Windows at the enterprise level, configured by them, with SAS on them.  This works OK, but there are fewer of them, they are harder to move files to/from due to an interface that is poor, and you must be on the internal network to use them, or deal with a very clunky way of connecting remotely.  It is basically a much less functional way to do SAS on demand Academic.

SAS University/Studio (when they allowed kext based VMs locally) was the perfect solution for an academic using OSX.  Everything just works, files local, can use on the plane (off the network).  Pull files from VM to local and vice versa easily.

So hence my question of whether there were any options for non-kext based VMs for SAS Studio/University.  For examples Parallels doesn't seem to use kexts, but it also doesn't run the SAS VM based products like SAS Studio/University.

I can learn R, but have used SAS so long that it is much more efficient.  I could also get a PC laptop, but really prefer Mac.  Hence I was trying to figure out options.

Thank you to all for your help.

If I am missing a SAS product that achieves me goals (run SAS product local on OSX without kext based VMs) please let me know.

[Tom]

So if your University has SAS for Windows (aka PC SAS) does it also have a server install of SAS? Whatever operating system they as using for the server?

If so then just use SAS/Studio from your Mac to run SAS on the server.  You can use network drives and/or upload download to work with files that you have created on your Mac.

[mattjolley]

I will check that idea out....

I am not sure I fully understand what you are suggesting.

What I think they currently do is have a VM running windows, with a local SAS install on that VM. I am not sure of the exact backend for the VM/server install etc. And yes, I can use a common drive to pass files back and forth. If the VPN/remote etc works out smoothly it will be a good solution, but still need to be on network/internet for interactive use.

[Reeza]

It would be like running SAS Academics on Demand, but SAS would be running on a server at your University or Hospital. Either institution would need to have a SAS Server set up for this to work. You would still access it via SAS Studio and likely would still have the intranet issues (ie only works internally) but it should be faster and easier to use.

[Kurt_Bremser]

If your employers require you to learn SAS, they have to provide the means for it.

If learning SAS is your own private undertaking, get your own laptop where you can do as you want.

[mattjolley]

I could technically get a second laptop or PC just for SAS, but it would be really nice to run it like I was working before on my MacBook Pro. See answer above.

[Kurt_Bremser]

You would need

- a VM that you can install/run on your Mac

- an OS in that VM that is supported by SAS

- a SAS license and SAS depot for that "software order" to install from

But I am afraid the "simple" installation (UE on VM) will only work on either VMPlayer or Virtualbox, which means you can't have a "offline capable" SAS in your current environment.

And all the other possible variants available to you will need a network connection (VPN to your employer/university, or connection to SODA).