As a SAS developer you can use the SAS language and, as shown in the course, SAS Access converts some of that into HiveQL processes so the processing is done in Hadoop. But if you need to do something that the SAS Access technology does not convert into a HiveQL equivalent AND you need the processing to be done in Hadoop (not brought back to SAS), then you would need to use another technique that does not involve SAS. In other words, some SAS language elements are converted into HiveQL but many are not.
Apart from LIBNAME method (SAS Access to Hadoop) it’s also possible to license other SAS technologies like SAS HPA, SAS LASR, Code Accelerator for Hadoop, and other technologies that will also perform additional SAS language based processing in Hadoop. This goes beyond what you can do with the SQL based processing of HiveQL and takes you into the realm of Statistical modeling, data mining, machine learning, or Data step-like processing (DS2) in Hadoop. That is overviewed in chapter 6 of the course. And some of it is covered in other courses in the Data Science academy as well