SAS Viya 3.x System Evaluation

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Recently, SAS introduced a new System Evaluation application for Viya 3.5 environments. This application enables organizations to assess the health of their systems and prepare for updates, upgrades and migrations to SAS Viya 4. In this post, we will look at how to install and use the application and what information the evaluation results provide.

System Evaluation is performed using the “Plan and Backup Ansible playbook.” This playbook is used in the planning stage of a migration to Viya 4 to scan and backup a Viya 3.5 deployment. The playbooks’ functionality has been enhanced to add evaluation capabilities.

Installation

The Plan and Backup Ansible playbook is delivered by the inventory plugin of the SAS-admin CLI. The inventory plug-in generates the playbook.

To get started, as the same user who will run the Plan and Backup Ansible playbook, download the latest sas-admin CLI from support.sas.com. You must also download the most recent version of the inventory, CAS, and backup plug-ins. The plugins are installed or updated using the sas-admin plugins command. The minimum version of the plugins required to perform the evaluation can change. At the time of writing, the minimum version is:

inventory 1.10.20 or higher
cas 1.12.10 or higher
backup 1.6.3 or higher

The command below will generate the playbook.

./sas-admin inventory generate-playbook --output-location /tmp/inventory-playbook

To use the playbook, copy the files from the directory where it was created into the Viya 3.5 project directory. This is where the inventory.ini file and the install playbook files for the SAS Viya 3.5 environment are located.

To configure the scan and backup, set the variables in viya_plan_backup_vars.yaml. Some of the key variables in the vars file

endpointServer: which is the URL of the SAS Viya 3 server
inventoryResultsLocation: the location to store the inventory results files
evaluationResultsLocation: the location to store the evaluation results files
reportCASServer : the CAS server where the result data will be loaded
SAS_BACKUP_ID: an ID for the SAS Viya 3.x migration package (must be unique for each run)
migrationPackageLocation: the storage location for the SAS Viya 3.x migration package.

All variables in the file are commented with the details of how to use them.

Running the evaluate play

To run the playbook, use the inventory.ini file that was used to deploy the SAS Viya 3.5 environment. The inventory.ini file defines the inventory of machines (hosts) and their roles in the Viya deployment. It tells Ansible which machines to configure and how to configure them. The playbook, by default, will perform both an inventory scan and backup if no parameters are provided. It accepts two parameters (tags) that will change that behavior:

evaluate
inventoryscan

Each parameter is independent, it is recommended to run “evaluate” first. To run the play, change the directory to the directory that contains your inventory.ini file and run the viya-plan-backup.yml playbook passing the tag evaluate.

cd sas_viya_playbook/
ansible-playbook viya-plan-backup.yml --tags 'evaluate'

The playbook loads the data containing the evaluation results to the CAS server specified in the viya_plan_backup_vars.yaml file.

The playbook also delivers the reports, and they can be imported to SAS Viya using the transfer plugin of the SAS Viya CLI or SAS Environment Manager.

System Evaluation Report

The SAS Viya 3.5 System Evaluation report contains four sections:

Migration Status
System Status
Installed Software
About this Report

From a migration perspective, the most important section is Migration Status. This section assesses the eligibility of the Viya 3.5 environment for migration to SAS Viya 4. In the Migration Status section, the “Release Meets Migration Requirements” column is used to determine if you are eligible to migrate to SAS Viya 4. The report notes, “In order to use the full-system migration method to migrate to SAS Viya 4, your installation must be SAS Viya 3.5, released on October 29, 2024, or later.” In our case, we can see that we are not eligible to migrate because the SPRE Build Date used to determine eligibility is 2019/11/06. The environment would need to be updated before it could be migrated to SAS Viya 4.

SAS recommends that you migrate to the latest SAS Viya 4 stable or LTS release.

If your environment is not eligible for migration, you will need to move to a release of Viya 3.5 released after October 29, 2024. If you are on a release prior to SAS Viya 3.5, you will need to follow the steps here to upgrade to the latest release. If you are on an earlier release of SAS Viya 3.5, use the steps here to update your 3.5 environment.

In the other sections of the report, System Status shows the characteristics of each host, including CPU, OS, and memory and shows the PostgreSQL version installed with SAS Viya 3.x. This information can be used to determine if the system supports upgrading to the latest release of Viya 3.5, and what resources may be required in a Viya 4 environment to support the migration.

Installed Software lists the versions of the RPMs installed in each server in the Viya 3.x environment.

Wrap Up

SAS has enhanced its Plan and Backup Ansible playbook for Viya 3.5 to include a system evaluation feature. This tool helps organizations assess whether their current environment is ready to migrate to SAS Viya 4. After using the sas-admin CLI inventory plug-in to create it, users can run the SAS Viya Plan and Backup playbook to generate a report that evaluates system health, software versions, and migration eligibility. If the environment meets the requirements, you can proceed with migration planning by running the inventory play of the playbook and ultimately creating a migration package. Otherwise, the report provides guidance on necessary updates.

Additional Resources

Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.