Managing many SAS metadata user groups & how they use a SAS platform is a major challenge for SAS administrators. (In fact, sometimes managing the users makes managing the underlying technology seem easy in comparison!) There are several scenarios where it makes sense to set up and manage multiple SAS Application Server Contexts, but often it is done simply to segregate different business groups who mostly use SAS in the same way (Enterprise Guide, Enterprise Miner, batch processing, etc.) but may have different SAS configuration or SAS/Grid resource requirements - such as different queues, SASWORK & SASINITIALFOLDER locations, etc.
With Grid Options Sets in SAS v9.4, managing these different requirements can now be centrally managed in the Logical Grid Server of a single SAS Application Server Context. The configurability is not just for SAS/Grid settings, it also applies to SAS configuration options as well, and can be applied not just based on the user or group membership, but also by the client applications they are running.
End result: a default SAS/Grid queue, default SAS configuration and default resources allocated, but also with optional queues, configurations and resources available - all managed in a single SAS Application Server Context in SAS Management Console. Brilliant!
To find out more, read my SAS Global 2016 presentation titled Easier Platform Administration using SAS 9.4 Grid Option Sets.
