Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn valuable insights into the end-to-end process of understanding customers' SAS platform, conducting assessments, and delivering strategic insights for alignment with larger modernization strategies.
Watch the Webinar
You will learn:
- How the Accenture SAS Assessment Utility is used to assess the existing SAS ecosystem.
- The scope and methodology associated with a real-world SAS assessment and migration project.
- Key challenges faced in assessment and insights generated for the modernization foundation.
The questions from the Q&A segment held at the end of the webinar are listed below and the slides from the webinar are attached.
Q&A
How does SAS Viya's architecture and cloud-native design enhance analytical capabilities compared to SAS 9, and what tangible benefits can I expect post-migration?
From a feature standpoint, SAS Viya 4 has had the focus of leveraging analytics in a broader sense. Viya 4 architecture gives you the scalability in the cloud completeness that you were looking out for in a SAS platform. Across the capability from an analytics standpoint with all the other features and procedures that we already had with 9.4, the biggest boost is the integration with the cloud services. It's not about just leveraging SAS; it's about leveraging the power of SAS along with the cloud services to give you that holistic view and leveraging the analytics into an overall wrapper. But if you look at gaining something from day one while moving into Viya, that's not going to be the right thought process or the approach that you should be looking at. It's going to be an upward journey. It's going to be a transformation. That's where there will be certain things that you might be doing in Viya that will need to be revisited and optimized for you to really realize the value. I'm not saying it's going to be years, but it's going to be a few months while you start really getting the fruits of Viya the way you want to leverage it.
What are the primary challenges I should anticipate when transitioning from SAS 9 to SAS Viya, and how can I effectively prepare for these hurdles?
The biggest challenge is knowing the existing eco-system and identifying what needs to be moved to Viya since most SAS 9 systems are legacy and the lack of governance model has resulted in unknowns.
Furthermore, the users have been accustomed to the SAS thick clients so much that changing the mindset and bringing them to Viya would be another key area.
Once these hurdles are tackled comes the technical side of it wherein determining the compatibility of SAS 9 artefacts on Viya and understanding the mapping of the artefacts in equivalent Viya tools need to be determined. Additionally, the migration of the datasets and external connectivity would need to be handled.
Can you share success stories or case studies of businesses that have migrated from SAS 9 to SAS Viya, particularly highlighting the impacts on their data analytics lifecycle and business outcomes?
While we have completed multiple client assessments both on the business and technical side, there have been instances where we have migrated the clients to the cloud while maintaining them on the SAS 9 version itself due to multiple reasons. There are some on-going migrations to SAS Viya 4 which are expected to be completed in the next few months. We hope to present those as a part of our next session and provide the insights you are looking for.
Recommended Resources
Data-Led Analytics Modernization: Moving SAS® Viya® to Microsoft Azure with Accenture
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The AI Slingshot: How to unleash AI at full scale with SAS® Viya®
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Please see additional resources in the attached slide deck.
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