Watch this Ask the Expert session to see an overview of SAS Enterprise Session Monitor, which is used globally to optimize the development of SAS applications.
Watch the webinar
You will learn:
- Identify source and target tables used by SAS.
- Monitor your interactive and batch SAS usage.
- Use capacity planning report for sizing of SAS environments.
- Identify usage patterns.
- Use Ecosystem Diagnostic.
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
Do we require a separate license for ESM for existing customers?
Yes, ESM is a standalone product and requires a separate license.
Is this only available for SAS Viya (Session Monitor tool)?
ESM is available on SAS9.x for Unix, Linux, and Windows. ESM is available on SAS Viya 3 and SAS Viya 4.
Is there a way to map the obfuscated user in the reports back to the real user on the system?
Yes, when the ESM data is extracted with the parameters that obfuscate users and hostnames it creates two files with the mappings. For hostnames, the file is called DONOTSEND_node_hash_mappings.csv. For users, the file is called DONOTSEND_user_hash_mappings.csv.
How much does this service cost on prem or SAAS?
SAS Enterprise Session Monitor is a Technology offering with an annual fee and a minimum 12-month contract period (trial available). The pricing metric of SAS Enterprise Session Monitor is Authorized Users.
Regarding prerequisites, can we install ESM on a SAS 9.3 M2 environment running on AIX 7.2?
ESM agents can be installed on SAS9.x for Unix, Linux, and Windows. For AIX, the ESM agent is supported on v5.2 through v7.2.
Does ESM monitor mainframe SAS jobs?
No. ESM is only supported on AIX, Linux , Solaris, and Windows.
What is the difference between SAS Environment Manager and ESM?
Very broadly there are two main functional differences between Environment Manager and Enterprise Session Monitor:
- Enterprise Session Monitor is completely independent of SAS (does not require SAS Logon for authentication/authorization)
- Enterprise Session Monitor has user session metrics in addition to infrastructure service metrics
ESM is going to give you much more granular detail on all interactive and batch SAS sessions. ESM collects metrics I.e., CPU, memory, and IO as well as distinct users, procedures ran and the source and target tables referenced in SAS Code. ESM can be used by individual users or administrators, supports chargeback, and can monitor other applications outside of SAS for a more complete view of what is occurring in the larger environment.
SAS Environment Manager is a web-based administration solution for a SAS environment. The application enables you to perform these tasks:
- administer, monitor, and manage SAS resources, including administering the SAS Web Application Server and monitoring SAS Foundation servers
- collect and chart data on metrics for monitored SAS resources, which creates a comprehensive view of resource health and operation
- monitor log events and reporting alerts
- incorporate the monitoring and managing of IT and SAS resources into a service management strategy by using the detailed metric information stored in the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart and the reports provided in the Report Center
SAS Environment Manager agents run on all SAS platforms except for z/OS.
How do you give multiple administrators access only to their jobs to manage?
The philosophy of Enterprise Session Monitor is such that anyone can see everything that is happening on a server. Enterprise Session Monitor provides capabilities to only enable certain users to be able to either open the log files or terminate processes that are owned by particular users.
Can you drill down on ESM Capacity Planning Reports to drill down to the services that is using the most CPU or memory?
The CPU Top/Bottom and Memory Top/Bottom reports will provide you information at the Server level. You do have access to the data used in these reports to drill into more details and create your own custom reports.
Do the Cluster reports separate for each Tenant on Viya environments?
It depends on how an environment is configured, but in a typical Viya 3 deployment, we use the “queue” field to differentiate different application tenants.
As long as ESM_GROUP is configured you can filter the cluster reports by environment.
How granular can the chargeback model go?
If you use the point-and-click interface within the tool, only a relative CPU number is available. However, if you extract the data from the system using exporting capability provided by the maintenance utility, then you can incorporate any metric captured at the session level into a chargeback model in any way you’d like.
Where is the ESM documentation on sas.com? More specifically, what are the metrics collected for chargeback?
The link to the Enterprise Session Monitor documentation on sas.com can be found here. However, this just links of the Boemska documentation site currently so the links below might be more useful.
Install ESM server (once) and ESM agent (on each node):
https://us.docs.boemskats.com/esm/2022.x/administration/esm-on-unix/
Enable active process discovery: https://us.docs.boemskats.com/esm/2022.x/configuration/esm-advanced-configuration/#active-process-di...
Configure SAS for ESM:
(9.4)
https://us.docs.boemskats.com/esm/2022.x/configuration/esm-for-sas9/
(Viya 3)
https://us.docs.boemskats.com/esm/2022.x/configuration/esm-for-viya3/
(SAS 9 and Viya 3 Compute/SPRE)
Deploy sas-proc-mon:
https://us.downloads.boemskats.com/esm/modules/sas-proc-mon/latest/
Username: esm
Password: BoemskaESM
(Viya 3)
Deploy sas-cas-mon:
https://us.downloads.boemskats.com/esm/modules/sas-cas-mon/latest/
Username: esm
Password: BoemskaESM
Deploy sas-data-mon:
https://us.downloads.boemskats.com/esm/utilities/sas-data-mon/experimental/
Execute it at least once to get a file containing SAS Data sets information.
Username: esm
Password: BoemskaESM
Deploy esm-maintenance. https://us.downloads.boemskats.com/esm/utilities/esm-maintenance/latest/
Username: esm
Password: BoemskaESM
SAS Viya
How do you identify source and target tables used by SAS?
For SAS 9.x running on Linux or Windows and for SAS Viya 3 and SAS Viya 4 the proc-mon module needs to be configured.
When SAS uses a table logs the “mode” in which this table was opened (input, output, update, etc.). Enterprise Session Monitor captures the mode that a table was opened. A SAS procedure opens both input and output tables for a procedure at the start of the procedure. We can use the start time of a procedure (which Enterprise Session Monitor can also capture) to mark input and output tables for individual steps, but therefore, also at the program level too.
Can the ESM Agent be extended to all databases to collect data for reporting?
Yes, you can install the ESM agent on any server regardless of what applications are ran on it.
How accurately can the configuration help you to set up your Azure server SKU?
It’s not clear what this question is about. However, if we assume that it is about capacity planning and whether a virtual machine is over or under provisioned then my answer is as follows: Very. Enterprise Session Monitor will give to 2 second interval (aggregated to per-minute and per-hour) metrics on the core compute resources that Azure charge virtual machines on. Using this data, you can see whether you have provisioned too much, or not enough compute for your application. If you have provisioned too little, you could you the generic per-process capabilities of Enterprise Session Monitor to understand what processes are using all of the compute resources.
Is ESM going to replace Environment Manager going into the future?
No.
How do you monitor your interactive and batch SAS usage?
If you complete the configuration steps for either your SAS 9 or SAS Viya 3 system (SAS Viya 4 is automatic) then you will be capturing both your interactive and Batch SAS sessions.
Can we monitor the Metadata exports/imports?
SAS Metadata Server exports/imports consumption of CPU, memory and IO would be captured. Out of-the-box, Enterprise Session Monitor will monitor SAS Metadata Server processes and capture the compute resources consumed. I don’t know whether or not when importing or exporting metadata there are any specific log messages that appear, but specific log file markers could be defined to highlight the start/end of import or export events.
Can we also monitor the SAS servers and service status using ESM?
I am going to assume that this means SAS services like Metadata Server, Web Application Server, Object Spawner, or the SAS Microservices (in Viya). If so: Enterprise Session Monitor can be configured to capture compute metrics about “SAS servers/services”. We don’t currently show a true “status” of a service (it might have a process running, but that process may be unresponsive), though this is something that is on our roadmap.
Will it be able to get down to the services memory allocation per service on Viya?
Assuming this means Microservices – Yes, Enterprise Session Monitor captures per-service memory allocation.
How do you give multiple Administrators only access to their Jobs to manage?
Through the configuration of what Enterprise Session Monitor terms “privileged users”.
Recommended Resources
System Tuning Using SAS® Enterprise Session Monitor
Why is SAS®9 Content Assessment Key in Migrating to SAS® Viya®? Q&A, Slides, and On-Demand Recording
Moving from SAS®9 to SAS® Viya®
Please see additional resources in the attached slide deck.
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