SAS 9.4 (on Windows) with Airflow integration

[filippo_kow]

 Hi everyone,

I have an issue. I’m running SAS 9.4 on a Windows Server, and I’d like to integrate it with Airflow, which is running on a Linux machine.

The current setup is very simple: I'm using the Windows Task Scheduler to trigger SAS programs locally on the Windows Server. As you can see, the architecture is quite basic. Now, I’d like to replace Windows Scheduler with Airflow. Here's the idea:

1. Airflow runs on a Linux machine.

2. I want to schedule a sample DAG that sends the appropriate command to the Windows Server (something like sasbatch.sh -sisin ... -log ..., etc.).

3. The Windows Server should then execute that command using SAS.

I’ve previously worked with a similar setup where both Airflow and SAS were on separate Linux servers, using the SSHOperator. However, in this case, SAS is installed on a Windows Server, and I’m not sure what’s the best way to approach this.

Has anyone dealt with a similar configuration? If so, I’d really appreciate any advice or examples on how to set this up.

 Thanks in advance,
 Filip

[filippo_kow]

 Hi again,

I'd really appreciate any tips or advice anyone can share 🙂

 Thanks,

 Filip

[SASKiwi]

I've never used Airflow but in my experience it is best practice to have your scheduler, or the scheduler's agent, running on the same server as SAS. This isn't possible when SAS runs on Windows Server as Airflow runs only on Linux. Google tells me could run Airflow on Windows Server in a virtualised environment (a VM) running Linux. But that seems like way too much complication just to run a scheduler.

Enterprise Schedulers get around the problem of scheduling across different OS's by having OS compatible agents running on each server. Control-M is one such example.

We use the SAS-provided OEM Platform Process Manager to schedule on Windows Server SAS and that works just fine as it nicely integrates with SAS Management Console. Airflow can't do that.

I think you are going to run into problems with executing Windows Server SAS from Linux Airflow as you actually have to remotely logon to the Window Server to execute any commands. FTP might be one possible option but it all sounds very clunky...