SAS v9.4 mid-tier JDBC configuration query

[AndrewHowell]

The mid-tier's not my strongest area, so thought I'd throw a design issue out for feedback:

• Assumption
• Issue
• Solution/Question #1
• Solution/Question #2

Mid-tier configuration assumption (please confirm or verify): a mid-tier SAS web app (e.g, SASServern_1) uses a shared/fixed JDBC connection to access RDBMS data, therefore all users running the SAS web app will share the common JDBC connection ID to the data.

Issue: Internal regulatory powers-that-be of the data insist that different business groups cannot share the one common JDBC ID.

Solution/Question #1: Can the settings for the JVM be configured to conditionally set the JDBC ID to be group-dependant? (Not sure how..)

Solution/Question #2: The web app could be vertically clustered, in which case, could each instance be configured to use a different JDBC ID, and also configured to ensure each group only uses their specific instance?

Other thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[JuanS_OCS]

Hi Andrew,
Nice question 🙂
I am not an expert either, but I will try my best with my current knowledge.

Assumption/logic 1: The JDBC is a setting on a web application level, not on a web application server level.

Assumption/logic 3: And as far as I know, only 1 web app of each type be registered on a single metadata server (horizontal clusters counts as a single web app).

With those 2 assumptions, I would say that both of the possible solutions are not an option.

In other hand, besides the expensive option to have a solution or deployment level per group, I can think on an alternative, but it would require an extra development on the current architecture:

The current configuration is set as a global variable/setting in an application level. But I think that variable can be overwritten on a user session level or authentication domain, such as the web authentication.

This option is used on web development several times (I am aware if your requirement). But:
1- I think that flavor of change would not be supported by SAS Technical Support. Most likely. You can check with them and they might have even an additional option.

2- you can ask a web app developing team at your company, just for fun and giggles, what they would do in your scenario.

Does it make any sense?

Best regards,
Juan

[AndrewHowell]

Hey, Juan - thanks for the response.

Thanks for the clarification re web application level, not web application server level - quite correct.

I'd still like to quiz the admins about vertical clustering (which is possible - horizontal and vertical clustering is one of the topics I cover when teaching SAS Administration), but although I've set up and used horizontal clustering in the past, I haven't set up vertical clustering - plus this requirement would mean they're not identically configured (different JDBC IDs).

I'm actually working with an installation team from SAS here - this was one solutions we considered, so we thought we'd throw it out here for commentary.

Regards.