All About Deployment Plan Files (SAS 9.4)

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In this post I want to cover some tips, tricks, and general knowledge about SAS 9.4 plan files.

For the uninitiated, these aptly named SAS deployment plan files are a collection of files that assist in the planning of a SAS deployment. These include topological summaries, diagrams, checklists, and an XML file. This XML file often has the default name of ‘plan.xml’, though it could be named anything. Plan.xml contains information about which SAS products to deploy and at which tier in the environment and is fed into the SAS Deployment Wizard as the “blueprint” for your SAS deployment.

Deployment Plan Classifications

SAS differentiates between three types of deployment plans, as seen in this excerpt from SAS Support documentation:

Customized deployment plans are necessary if you plan to run more than one offering in a single SAS environment or if the non-customized deployment plan does not match your topology.

Non-customized deployment plans are suitable when you intend to run only one offering in your SAS environment, and the architecture or topology outlined in the details_diagram.html file matches your intended topology exactly.

Standard deployment plans are a small collection of plan files created to assist in the deployment of a very specific and common set of offerings

Basically, non-customized and standard plans are preset deployment plans offered by SAS. If your deployment is very basic (not containing many SAS offerings) then perhaps one of these plans is what you’d use. Standard plans cover a select few multi-sas-offering deployment scenarios, and non-customized plans cover all the single-sas-offering deployments.

Customized plans are generally going to be site-specific. When non-customized or standard plans don’t work for your topology or set of products, a customized plan is needed.

How to Get a Deployment Plan

Standard plans are typically included in the SAS software depot, and will be listed as selectable options in the SAS Deployment Wizard... but you can also check out this list of both standard and non-customized plans: SAS Support Downloads Browse

Select any image to see a larger version.
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Photo taken from SAS support article: SAS Support - SAS®9 Deployment Plans Explained

Customized plans are a bit different. Since they are customized (as the name suggests) you can’t simply go and download one from a list. Only SAS employees have the ability to create customized plans. Customers or external users will need to contact SAS in order to receive one to their specifications.

Retrieving the plan.xml File from an Active Deployment?

Let's say you have a deployed SAS environment, and you were looking to use the plan.xml file as a blueprint for a new one (this happens often when adding a new product or regenerating for a new SAS release). Though it’s a good idea to keep them, you’re unable to find the original copy. You’ve got an active SAS deployment... A plan must have existed at some point... Maybe a copy is stored somewhere...

Deployment files are not destroyed upon use, but it is possible for them to be digitally discarded by an administrator. Luckily, even if this were the case, a copy will still exist of the plan.xml file in your active deployment (though not the other diagrams or summary files) under the configuration directory. Typically, this location would be the default:

C:\SAS\Config\Lev1\Utilities\plan.2026-01-24-02.24.xml

Of note, the date and time of the deployment is recorded in the name of the file. Pretty handy.

If you specified a different configuration directory path during deployment, then it should still be in ‘utilities’ under that new path.

How to Tell if a Plan is Custom from the plan.xml File

It could be worthwhile to know if a deployment plan was custom-built or a standard plan (making a newer version downloadable from SAS without help). One could laboriously compare their deployment plan to every similar standard/non-customized plan... or they could use this little trick:

Here I have a screenshot of the top of a standard plan.xml file:

This one is a standard plan’s plan.xml file. I went ahead and remade it, custom, with everything nearly identical. Here is the top of that custom file:

My keen-eyed viewers might have already noticed the difference... The ‘CreatedBy’ field has been filled with my name!

So, you can tell if a plan is standard/non-customized based on whether or not it’s attributed to a creator. If it isn’t: it’s a generic plan from SAS, and if it is: it’s custom!

The rest of the deployment plan’s contents

Finally, we’ll wrap up by taking a look at the other files, besides plan.xml, that you may find in your deployment plan.

Here’s a screenshot of all the potential files:

There’s plan.xml, an index, a checklist, a summary diagram, a details diagram, and a deployment steps document. Most of these files come in an alternate file format, but their contents are identical to their twin counterpart’s.

The only thing in this list that’s needed for a SAS deployment is that plan.xml, the other files are there to make sense of your topology or otherwise help deployment in some optional way.

Checklist.rtf / Checklist.pdf

This document exists to help you catalogue information about your SAS order, system specifications, networking considerations, etc.

Here’s a couple of screenshots to show what I mean, the blanks can be filled in the appropriate information:

Some information is filled automatically, but most is left blank:

Details_diagram.html / Details_diagram_for_ie7.mht

The details diagram contains all required software to install and configure on each tier, including optional tiers:

The details diagram is what the deployment_steps_text.html and summary_diagram.html files are based on.

Summary_diagram.html / summary_diagram_for_ie7.html

This is a simplified version of the details diagram, with only the software requiring configuring noted at each tier:

Deployment_steps_text.html

The text deployment steps file is a view of the details diagram without all the graphic styling. It conveys the same information:

Since it’s all text, the tiers are arranged vertically in one long scrollable list that wouldn’t fit in a screenshot. You’ll have to trust me that they’re all there.

Index.html

This is the final file to look at in the deployment plan. It acts a bit like a README file, it briefly explains the purpose of the checklist file, the need to install third-party software, and where to find SAS installation help:

Related Links:

Non-Customized and Standard Plan Downloads List

SAS Support - SAS®9 Deployment Plans Explained

https://support.sas.com/resources/thirdpartysupport/index.html

https://support.sas.com/

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