SAS Grid Installation Binaries and config on shared location (IBM Spectrum scale)

[anguraj1]

Dear SAS User and Admins community,

we are working on SAS Grid implementation project where we need to install SAS Grid on AWS with IBM Spectrum Scale as shared file system. There are several papers mentioned about SAS Grid compute nodes binaries and config directories to be installed and configured on shared file system (in our case it is IBM SS). 

1. How to install binaries and config in shared location (IBM SS) ?

2. what are all the considerations we need to note for this type of installation of binaries and config on shared location on IBM SS on AWS cloud?

3. which are all the nodes has to share the binaries and configuration , i believe only grid nodes has to share the binaries. 

not grid controller and metadata and mid tier nodes. -please correct me if i am wrong

4. what are all the configuration/installation changes we need to make after installing binaries in shared location (IBM SS) ?

Please provide any additional considerations we need to make before installing the SAS Grid on Shared location 

Thanks,

Anguraj Selvaraj 

[Anand_V · Accepted solution]

Hi @anguraj1 

You will have to install and config the same way you do on other file systems. There is nothing special here just that you will have to do it only once since this file system will be shared across. Shared file system should be shared across all the compute nodes right from your master to slaves. If you aren't using EGO for HA of services, you can consider having two master nodes for creating HA for object spawner service.

You can also think of considering to have a shared home directory for users on these compute nodes, in case they save any of their stuff under home directories. It will help to have consistent user experience irrespective of the grid node their job run on.

You will also have to have LSF binaries on shared file system. If you are installation SAS Grid Manager for Platform on or after SAS Ver. 9.4M4 then its better to make SAS Installer account as the LSF administrator account too as it will help to configure platform web services without having to change permissions or add Installer account to SMC. You can see more info here - https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=gridref&docsetTarget=p1ad54icxt53fxn1wltw5tcbsplq.htm&docset...

If you are planning to use SAS Environment Manager then you will have to perform additional steps for agents as the configuration willl be shared. Details here - https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=gridref&docsetTarget=p0vmcshemrmkhvn1w9no6ktmhy4i.htm&docset...

There are few HA scenarios discussed in the below link which would help architect the platform better. https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=gridref&docsetTarget=n0pe8ywim7tmarn1bjb98qmjre4u.htm&docset...

And I believe you have already gone through the performance tuning recommendations for installation SAS Grid on AWS with IBM SS http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/performance-tuning-considerations-amazon-web-services-sas-9-...

Also since you haven't mentioned your product stack, If you have web applications (apart from SAS Studio, E-Miner) part of SAS Solutions, its better you have a confirmation from technical support if they are supported on GRID or not. My advise is to have a different application context which isn't grid enabled for web applications. HPA products and MPP VA are also not supported.