Regular Performance Issues in SAS Enterprise Guide

[techsassy]

Hello, I am an experienced programmer and long time user of SAS Enterprise Guide. One issue that I've often noticed with SAS EG throughout the years is that, after using other working platforms (Excel spreadsheets, Chrome browser tabs, etc.), when I try to switch back to Enterprise Guide, it very regularly hangs for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds before I can interact with it again. It doesn't matter if I leave EG on the code tab or a data tab; the whole platform seems to hang whenever I try to multitask in other non-EG software, which is very frustrating and disruptive to workflow. 

My company recently upgraded our laptops and I received a fairly robust model. I'm using a Dell 3480 with Windows 10, 32GB RAM, 13th Gen i7-1370P (20 CPUs) 1.9GHz, NVIDIA RTX A500. Even on a fresh install with a brand new laptop, Enterprise Guide continues to have regular, long hang times when switching between other software platforms. I tried assigning greater priority (high and real-time) to a couple of SAS processes in Windows Task Manager, but it didn't help at all.

Does anyone know of either a workaround to this issue or else a way to allocate more CPU/RAM resources to Enterprise Guide, or other tips and tricks that might help?

[ChrisHemedinger]

What you're describing is not normal/expected behavior. EG should be as snappy as any other application you're using.

You could turn on Application Logging in the Tools->Options area and if you notice it happening again, work with SAS Tech Support and supply a sample application log file. These contain detailed events that Tech Support or developers can use to see what might be causing a pause.

[techsassy]

Thank you for the helpful response, Chris. I'm glad to hear that this is abnormal behavior and that a resolution should be possible.

I think what has been most confusing and frustrating about the experience is that it happens even when SAS is "idle". I may have some code or data open, but I'm not actively running any programs or interacting with EG in a significant way; it is simply by virtue of Alt+Tabbing or clicking the EG icon to restore the SAS window as my primary application focus that seems to trigger the behavior, almost as if EG needs to summon a whole bunch of processing resources simply to pick up where it left off.

I'll take your suggestion about the Application Logging and see what it leads to... Thanks again!

[ChrisHemedinger]

My best guess -- without seeing any details -- is that there is a latency when EG is connecting to/syncing info from the SAS Metadata Server or SAS Workspace. Since these connections are constant and stateful, EG chats over the network more than, say, a web browser might. Hopefully the logs would reveal something...but it's possible that in your environment there isn't an easy remedy.

[Kurt_Bremser]

between other software platforms

What do you mean by that?

[techsassy]

Kurt, by "other software platforms", I simply meant switching to Excel, or Chrome, or Power BI, or SSMS, Paint, Spotify, etc... basically anything that takes focus off of SAS EG seems to put EG into a deep slumber that it struggles to reawake from.

[Kurt_Bremser]

If these are heavy resource eaters, switching back to EG may need unloading data from memory to the pagefile and reloading EG from there. EG itself is no slouch in that regard, either.

[SASKiwi]

I suggest you open Windows Task Manager and monitor it during an EG slowdown. Is there any other process hogging CPU or memory? I've seen anti-virus software hog CPU usage back in the day. If this doesn't help, then follow other poster's suggestions to open a track with Tech Support. I use EG a lot, and the only time I've seen it slow down is when there are network bottlenecks. It normally performs as fast as other PC apps.

[Sajid01]

Hello @techsassy 
Often in the corporate world user's data is stored on the shared drives. These are mounted on to the local machine with a drive letter. Thus, for a user it appears as if it is a local drive. It could possibly contribute to latency.
Similarly, there is a trend to store users home directory on a cloud platform such as one drive.
Is this applicable in your case too?
Do you have large hard drive terrabyte(s)  in size and as a single partition? Discuss with your IT dept if it could be partitioned.

I suggest that you discuss the issue with your local IT department.

[techsassy]

Thank you everyone. SASKiwi, Task Manager does not show unsual CPU/RAM behavior; all numbers except for "Power Usage" stay relatively constant. Power usage spikes into "Very high" during the slow downs, although I'm unsure if it exhibits this behavior during normal operation, too.

Sajid, what you describe is almost exactly our situation. My department's shared drive is 6TB and houses all of our SAS data and programs. I believe that the home/user directories for our every individual in our organization also exist on a single network drive that is 24TB. When asking about the single large partition, are you referring to my department's shared network drive (6TB) or to our organization's user/home directory network drive (24TB)? If our IT department is able and willing to partition the drive(s), how do you recommend deciding what to put on the new partition(s)? Would it just be the datasets that we process, or would it be SAS programs, conifguration files, etc.? or do you just mean that I should try to get my personal user/home directory moved to its own partition that is separate from everyone else's on the 24TB user/home drive?

Thanks much!

[SASKiwi]

What happens to Task Manager Disk and Ethernet usage during the slowdowns? Do they all look "normal" without either spikes in IO or network traffic? Is EG installed on your local hard drive, along with the EG roaming profiles ( Should go in a directory like this: C:\Users\Your Userid\AppData\Roaming\SAS\EnterpriseGuide).

Another thought - do you get better perfomance outside normal business hours? Again that would point to either IO or network traffic bottlenecks.

[Sajid01]

Hello @techsassy 
When asking about the single large partition I was asking about the drive on the laptop/Desktop and not the shared drive.

My preference on laptop / desktop is that OS and that comes on it is the C drive and datasets/codes should be on a different partition say for example D drive. If the data drive (D) becomes full, your OS being on a separate partition is not impacted and vice versa. 
Shared drives are larger and that is how they are meant to be. 
You said that "One issue that I've often noticed with SAS EG throughout the years is that, after using other working platforms (Excel spreadsheets, Chrome browser tabs, etc.), when I try to switch back to Enterprise Guide, it very regularly hangs for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds before I can interact with it again"

The browser cache is local to the system and in normal course stored on your local drive. It is very much possible that the excel files are stored locally or an a faster shared drive. That is why they work fine.
I looked for the specification of Dell 3480. It is Dell precision workstation with NVME disk. That explains why Excel and  Chrome are faster.
Your EG may be referencing remote shared drives.
Shared drives are not local and depending upon the type and local architecture   some latency is expected.  The best thing is to work with your local IT team as they know the environment and can help better.