Getting Data Into SAS® Viya® – What Data Fits and How? Q&A, Slides, and On-Demand Recording

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Did you miss the Ask the Expert session on getting data into SAS^® Viya^®? Not to worry, you can catch it on-demand at your leisure. 

Watch the webinar 

Join SAS expert Rex Pruitt as he guides you through a discussion on the ease of data access, automation of the data load process and engineering the best solution for your SAS^® Viya^® environment. During this webinar, you will learn:

• The importance of data location.
• The variety of data storage types.
• The impact of proper data movement.

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.

Can data be pulled from Sybase in Viya? My org has not yet converted to a modern database, and we are also considering moving from SAS 9.4 to Viya, but will still need to access Sybase from Viya for a while?

• Currently, SAS does not have a Viya Data Connector for Sybase.  See the availability list found in the SAS Documentation for Data Connectors.  Viya 4.0 is coming soon, so please check back for possible updates to this list.
• In the meantime, you might want to consider using a Sybase JDBC driver with the JDBC Data Connector.  Of course, there would be minimal, if any, help from SAS in configuring the Sybase JDBC (or any 3^rd party) driver.

For autoload, does SAS Viya support data preparation scheduling just like in Data Integration Studio where we define a flow?

• Well, I’m not sure how it compares to Data Integration Studio, but, Yes…In SAS Viya 3.5 Licensed users can use the Job Flow Scheduler in the Jobs and Flows section of SAS Environment Manager to create complex flows. The entry Jobs in SAS Environment Manager becomes Jobs and Flows if you have a SAS Job Flow Scheduler license.
• See also Jobs and Flows: Overview in the SAS Viya Administration: What’s New SAS Documentation

Is there some sort of documentation to access ETL and SAS EG when scheduling a program?

• As far as ETL, a SAS User could use many methods to “Extract, Transform, and Load” data as a component of an analytics project.  This can be done programmatically with a SAS Code session window.  Or, one could use a variety of “Tasks” though a GUI Wizard and allow the SAS Software to write the SAS Code in the background.  These tasks can be joined in a “Job Flow” and executed using a scheduler.  EG has a scheduling component.
• Here’s a link to a previous Ask The Expert webinar that may help…SAS Enterprise Guide: Scheduling Projects

Is there an auto refresh interval available for data that resides in an RDBMS that is mapped to a CASLIB, or does an ETL job need to load and refresh the in-memory data using a scheduler?

• If the data is updated and exists in the RDBMS, then the data would have to be refreshed through a new load of the data to CAS.  I recommend reviewing the Overview of CAS Table State Management in the Data Administration section of the SAS Viya 3.5 Administration Guide.

How can we schedule a program to run on SAS Studio?

• Not in SAS Studio. Please see the response to the second question above.
• You may find this Ask the Expert webinar helpful…SAS Studio: An Introduction
• The same questions was asked and here’s the response:
• SAS Studio jobs can be run in the background but the interface currently does not support scheduling. You could save the SAS programs on the server and use another scheduler like LSF. See here for more information. 

I’m new to Viya (currently in the process of configuring servers; coming from a SAS 9.4 environment). We are loading data directly from Oracle to CAS via Environment Manager scheduled jobs. I have my library set up with a connection to Oracle. I will be exposing some of my data to the public, while most will be internal only. Would you recommend loading all of the tables into the same CAS library and handle security via authorizations, or would you recommend splitting the data into multiple libraries, with each library being secured?

• I recommend speaking with your SAS Administrator about SAS® Viya® 3.5 Administration: Multi-tenancy.
• It would also be a good idea to review Security Administration sections Authentication and Orientation to Authorization with them as well.
• We have Global Customer Success (GCS) Administrative support resources at SAS that could meet with your team to review the most appropriate methods for your specific use case.  Reach out to your Customer Success Manger to arrange a meeting.

Recommended Resources

Viya 3.5: CAS loading supported file types and platforms

How to create a path-based CASLIB to SASWORK for speedier analysis with SAS Viya

Six Easy Ways to Import Local SAS Data Sets into CAS (SAS Viya 3.5)

When is CAS_DISK_CACHE used? 

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