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fifsgrwilliams
Calcite | Level 5

Hello All,

I am a Sys Admin that is somewhat new to SAS, but loving what I have seen so far.

My questions is can SAS 9.4 on Windows be configured to use multiple Work directories as it can (or could) in 9.2 on UNIX-based systems?

 

Reference Link: UNIX Companion Guide

 

I imagine this would take the form of:

....

-work

E:\saswork

F:\saswork

method=random

.....

 

Thanks in Advance!

10 REPLIES 10
tlk
Quartz | Level 8 tlk
Quartz | Level 8

Hello,

 

You configure it in the SASv9.cfg file form the detail about it go to http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostunx/67929/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n1fp5wzvkb61g4n11z...

 

To use more than one directory, you must put all your directories in a text file and the last line should be your choice of process method(random, space) and point -work toyourfile. 

 

You could also use another directory for the sort procedure, SAS is I/O bound so spreading the use of disk acces across different file system speed up things

fifsgrwilliams
Calcite | Level 5

Thank you kindly.

 

The link you provided appeared to be for a UNIX system, but our production environment is Windows Server 2008 R2. Do you know if the same logic applies for specifying work or scratch directories?

 

I will give this a try over the weekend, but naturally prefer to be as well-armed as possible going into a maintenance window. Does the file/folder require any special permissions or can i just clone the permissions the current work directory had?

 

I agree with you about the IO bind completely from what I have seen from our Monitoring software. I must admit that the main reason for this isn't to spread out the IO, but because of space. I do like when I can kill two birds with one stone though. The current work volume is on SSDs and I am adding a volume that is on a Serial Attached SCSI SAN with 15k drives, so hopefully IO wont take too much of a hit. As a side note - I am considering an HP I/O Accelerator card as well, but more for future proofing.

Ref: HP I/O Accelerator

 

I appreciate you getting back with me on this so rapidly.

 

Robert

tlk
Quartz | Level 8 tlk
Quartz | Level 8

Hello,

 

The same thing is possible under Windows  http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/67962/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n1qr5dmzagn9krn1lt...

 

You should also look at the cleanwork utility and schedule it a couple time a day.  It delete the work folder that aren't attached to a process, it happen not all the time but often. 

 

I'd like to have an admin with such a care for the SAS users as most of us are tossed to the side... wow ssd drive for the work.

 

Good luck.

 

Laurent

jakarman
Barite | Level 11

These days you should think of the config/levx/{SASApp}  directories having alls user modification files.
That is avoiding th old classic single one and having many of those.  By that you could make other choices for better service/performance.     

---->-- ja karman --<-----
tlk
Quartz | Level 8 tlk
Quartz | Level 8

Thanks, I always forget about those user modification file.  In our shop, we two SAS worlds, so to speak, one traditional on Unix and one EnterpriseBI on windows server.   On unix the admin still modify the holy sasv9.cfg...  but on Windows we use the config/Lev1/{SASApp}, so when I have to look at all our configs it take a little more work.   That said, we're looking to bring it all in one echosystem, it will be easier to manage.

 

 

Laurent 

jakarman
Barite | Level 11

The advantage of all those usermodfiles is you can pinpoint on that specific one. where it is relevant and needed.
One central is one that do not fit all of them.
Thinking in some leveling coudl help.  

-  Machine/Iron related (generic fo all) have it at the foundation usermods
- for sasapp server (you can have many of those) for each application (business app?) 
- for a batch/connect/workspace as any difference by those needed.
It looks more work but you are not running into contradictionary requirements. 

---->-- ja karman --<-----
LinusH
Tourmaline | Level 20
Why are you needing several work directories? It seem cumbersome to configure. If you just need more space, that's the job of the volume manager for your storage system
Data never sleeps
fifsgrwilliams
Calcite | Level 5

We are needing to spread out the work directories as a space issue.

While I could Span the volumes that I want to enable as work directories, I feel the overhead of having essentially a software RAID makes this not the ideal option. We would be spanning SSD volumes and spinning disk volumes, which also does not soud ideal. While it may work, from a systems administration standpoint it is far from ideal to span disk on separate systems (one local and one SAN) that have differing core architectures.

 

As the Systems Administrator, I am trying to find the best solution for Budget, Systems, and mainly SAS users experience. To me, it seems far less cumbersome to let SAS decide which sessions to place on what volumes than to have the other complexities of Hardware and intermingled spanned disks.

jakarman
Barite | Level 11

Windows is a little bit different to the Unix approaches.
Having fast IO in the local iron you will benfit the most of it. Check the Margareth Crevar papers for those. A starting point could be:  http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings15/SAS1501-2015.pdf    

 

Did you think off Utilloc ? remember each of the requests shoudl have sufficient space. by spreading the total you are also lowering the maximum of a single process.

---->-- ja karman --<-----
jakarman
Barite | Level 11
Good question Linus. There are several answers to that one. Resource segregation can be done by rolling out many machines on a shared iron.
You could also do ssegregation logical.
One easy to understand is the batch processing (predictable managed) and interactive (unpredictable not managed) sharing same data and same code on a single environment.
---->-- ja karman --<-----

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