MULTIPLE SAS SESION FROM ONE USER

[ToTylkoGra]

Hi All !

I need help or confirmation about my thougths about multiple sas session started from one user on a common serwer. 

I am working on a common server where everyone have access to SAS EG.

 Server has its own memory  limitations,isnt it ? I cant evaluate how many employees uses the same serwer BUT. The question is. If one user opens multiple SAS sesions on the same serwer and compiles or check some programs on the same time... , can it cause memory usage errors? 

From time to time I have issues from SAS EG that there is a problem with memory usage so I am wondering if it is one of the cause of the problem with memory usage. Then I could inform other emplyyess "maybe" to not do this.

I hope I was accurate with the question and 

I will be happy to hear your thoughts or share your experiences !!

Greetings

[LinusH]

First to be clear: EG is a client application. SAS Sessions that is requested by EG can be executed on a remote SAS server or local to the EG application. How is your setup?

I guess is the SAS server you are worried about.

Working interactively in EG should not be affected by constrained server resources. But code submitted from EG can of course execute slower if server resources are scarce.

Most SAS processing doesn't generate errors. If a sessions uses more RAM than the MEMSIZE options, SAS starts swapping. If the total available RAM runs out, the server OS starts swapping. A few SAS processes requires in memory data - these could end in error.

Your maintenance/operations team should be able to help you monitor/audit server usage, so you together can take necessary actions.

Of course users need to be aware of best practices, and perhaps plan their work. On the other hand, stopping them to do necessary analysis should be seen as contra productive.

[Kurt_Bremser]

I solved this issue in the following way:

• Locate WorkspaceServer_usermods.sh in the configuration tree of your server context on the SAS server
• Add a ps command which searches processes of the current use, and count the lines of the output
• If the count exceeds a certain threshold, exit

Once this is done, wait for the first user to protest 😉

[Reeza]

What makes you think this would cause memory issues?

Each session should be independent, and using multiple sessions is a method used to streamline processes and parallel process your work. If I was an employee I probably wouldn't adhere to a request to have a single session.

What type of memory usage errors are you running into? Issues with access to specific memory or is someone running models that use up too much memory? Are you ensuring that sessions that end abruptly have a clean up process?

[SASKiwi]

What memory-related errors are you getting? Please post an example. In my experience, the only memory errors I've encountered are when the code I'm running doesn't have sufficient memory allocated to it. This will happen regardless of how many users and SAS sessions are running. This is controlled by the SAS system OPTION MEMSIZE. Increasing the MEMSIZE option will fix this problem. You can check what your SAS installation's setting for this is by running this:

proc options option = memsize;
run;

It is the responsibility of your SAS administrator to monitor SAS server usage and they can use tools like SAS Environment Manager to check if SAS is CPU, memory or IO constrained.

There is nothing to prevent users running multiple SAS sessions by opening multiple EG sessions unless your adminstrator has imposed some constraints like @Kurt_Bremser 's example. As long as this is not maxing out your SAS servers' resources I don't see this as a problem as long as there is a good reason for running multiple sessions.