SAS Management Console to Monitor SAS Servers -- for user names and jobs

[RedPlanet]

I looked for information on how to find our SAS users, the programs run, and even the datasets read and written (if that's available).  I found a document that seems to answer my questions, "SAS® 9.4 Intelligence Platform -- System Administration Guide, Fourth Edition", on PDF pages 107-108, 111-112, and 133-134.  I'm looking for a confirmation or answer from an admin, since I'm just an inquisitive developer.

We have the SAS grid, and should update soon to the latest version with the latest software.  I have applications that will be converted to the new platforms, but we need to know who will be affected by those conversions.  It looks like SAS Management Console has that information.  I also noticed that current and historical metadata server logs may have what I want, as mentioned on pages 133-134.

Our SAS grid runs Linux with SAS 9.4 (TS1M3).  I expect that we will upgrade to latest 9.4 version soon, which I believe has an upgraded SAS Management Console that may answer these questions.

Please share your advice on answering this age old question:  who uses the software that I'm writing?

[LinusH]

The Management Console itself holds only current users, and perhaps not for all types of accesses.
Logins are as you point out logged, but the metadata server log is just a raw log.
I would investigate what Environment Manager has to offer. I think has access more extensive and structured logging, and it's the more future proof interface for managing SAS resources.

[JuanS_OCS · Accepted solution]

Hello @RedPlanet,

I understand that you are trying to get ready for a migration, and you are doing an impact analysis, in order to design a migration plan. Do I understand it correctly?

For that:

• the SAS Management Console (SMC) is a great  GUI to give you a view on the inventory of metadata objects, and the authorisations on it (indeed, as @LinusH said, the current ones)
  • However, if you are looking to generate a full report on the inventory and authorisations, SMC is short on it. You will need either a metadata script (or several) or to have a tool to do this for you. My preference is always on Metacoda ( provided by 2 good community fellows @MichelleHomes and @PaulHomes ) 
• You can find logs of execution of code (which will contain also the actual queries to data) on your SAS Server logs, located by default on config/Lev1/SASApp/XXXXXServer/Logs, but the actual location on your deployment might be different, please ask your SAS Admin about them. You might need to parse those logs.

• Also a very popular tool to make impact analysis is the BI Lineage (in SMC) or Impact Analysis/Reverse Impact Analysis on SAS Data Integration Studio (SASDI). They provide all the relationships between reports, jobs and data. You may get it as well with the Relationship Reports http://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=bisag&docsetVersion=9.4&docsetTarget=n02xw5d6g8m7v7n1shgdj8pf...

Hope it helps.

Kind regards,

Juan

[MichelleHomes]

Thanks @JuanS_OCS for the mention. We're always pleased to hear your feedback.

@RedPlanet, if you'd like to try out the Metacoda Security Plug-ins software Juan suggests, please register for a 30 day free Metacoda Security Plug-ins evaluation at https://www.metacoda.com/en/evaluation/

Kind Regards,

Michelle