SAS 9.4 M5 installation in distributed environment

[Slider]

Dear All, 

I am new to SAS .  Planning to install 3 solutions of SAS 9.4 M5 i.e. SAS VA , CI & DI+EG  solutions in our linux servers. for this we have purchased 4 servers (3 for installing SAS Solutions and one for MetaData ) with below configuration

Server Systems

• A minimum of 8 cores
• 16 GB RAM (available to SAS)
• Swap space: 1.5 times physical RAM or 250 GB,whichever is less
• I/O Throughput of at least 100 MB/second/core
• HDD 1TB each

pl. help suggest how to proceed ( basically i need installation sequence and steps to do installation for each solutions )

Thanks in advance.

[PaulHomes]

Start by reviewing all of the information in the SOE (email) you would have got from SAS along with the SAS 9.4 Intelligence Platform: Installation and Configuration Guide and any specific documentation for the solutions.

However, if you are new to SAS and have never done a multi-machine SAS platform installation before, then I would strongly recommend getting help from SAS Professional Services or a local SAS Partner. You will have a much greater chance of success if you do so and they will also be able to help you make choices that may be difficult or time-consuming to change after the deployment.

[Slider]

Hi PaulHomes,

Thanks for your kind help. will have to check with my BA whether any signup been done with SAS wrt installation assistance or not.

also i have read the pdf you have asked to read, but didn't get any details wrt multi machine installation. may i request if you can pl. share any doc which might help me giving an overview.

thanks in advance

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @Slider,

I would strongly advise you to proceed as @PaulHomes suggested. 

First, I would get a proper sizing proposal. The one you assigned, I understand were it comes from (SAS Foundation system requirements), but you are installing SAS Solutions, which includes many more products than just SAS Foundation. You will need additional resources. The best sizing you can get it from SAS EEC https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/2013/11/27/sas-deployment-whats-the-right-size/

Besides this, the first thing you will need is a SAS Deployment Plan (plan.xml) which only an allowed person can access this web app. The deployment plan will describe your desired deployment in the shape of an xml file.

Ans your SAS depot/s and licenses will have to be created according to this desired deployment.

Apart from this, for each solution, you have also published "administration" or "deployment" guides. Just look for them, google, for steps of installation process. You should be able to find for some specific solutions as well in the check.pdf file that will come along with the deployment plan file.

If you have not installed those solution earlier, you will increase your rate of success and decrease budget costs if you contact your SAS representative or partner to assist you during this task.

[Slider]

hi JuanS_OCS,

along with the SAS DEPOT 9.4 we were been given plan file and SID file and sizing details mentioned in my first post was given by SAS Sizing Team.

also i went through the pdf as suggested by you and @PaulHomes but found multi machine installation assistance is not available. would really appreciate if you or @PaulHomes can suggest some pdfs which can provide a broad level idea on how multi machine installation of our SAS solutions can be done

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @Slider,

a multi-machine deployment is not much more different from a single machine installation, but multi-tier-ed. Same documents should apply on same way. Which documents do you have?

If you are new to SAS, perhaps you would like to have the service of a technical SAS consultant or partner, available for questions, to connect to your environment, do a final quality control check, etc.

The important concepts here:

• Spend as much time as needed in preparing the pre-requirements. Most deployments fail because missing or wrong requirements.
• when you install (SAS Deployment Wizard/setup), better separate Installation (binaries only) and Configuration (deployment of the actual services)
• Your deployment plan must include the steps for every machine of your deployment (does it? Could you check?)
• According to your proposed sizing, please select always Small Deployment, when you are asked for it.
• Ensure the port numbers are not blocked in the firewalls.
• If you are new, I recommend no firewall and no antivirus running, at all, in the machines, during the deployment.
• Maybe you can ask your SAS representative for the Validation Guides, as well known as STIC tests.
• Before any big change/step, have a good snapshot of your servers (all), to roll back if something goes wrong. Saves a lot of time, mony and worries/frustration.

A broad view of the steps:

- ensure your SAS depot contains all the available critical hotfixes

- ensure requirements (system requirements, solution requirements, make the software available to the server, database drivers and connections, anything as pre-installation in the solutions, etc)

- ensure the installation of 3rd party software, as required (example, JUnit, LSF or Python)

- run the Installation part first, you can select on which machine you will install (thanks to plan.xml)

- run SAS Installation Qualification and the SAS Operation Qualification Tools

- Preferably, get the SAS HotFix tool and check and install all the latest hotfixes (please read the documented steps from the report)

- run the Configuration, first Metadata, then CI, then VA, then DI+EG, then clients. 

- read the Instructions.html and the documentation post-installation steps, and hotfixes post-deployment steps.

- validate the environment (STIC tests, or your own)

- create maintenance scripts (clean work, clean work, backups, etc)

- document the environment

- consolidate and release the environment (a proper handover and explanation to your stakeholders should help a lot). Initiate the next steps as needed (e.g: authorizations matrix, responsibilities and communications, etc)

Hope it helps. Please let us know if you have more questions or comments.