I have spoken with customers about how they typically maintain such an environment. It is different than straight batch SAS submission, but nearly as flexible but with some integration that EG offers that isn't in batch SAS.
1) They put a central PC/high-end desktop in the data center that the main admins for SAS can remote desktop into. This machine is always on and on a high speed network.
2) They use the project scheduling capability in EG. This is VB script based and leverages Windows AT (scheduler.) Note- EG can also act as an OLE Automation client to be called from other apps if desired.
3) People can customize the VB scripts for a variety of purposes. For example, here is an example VB script to allow passing custom parameters into the project at run time (by Chris Hemedinger on our Dev Team):
Option Explicit
Dim app
Dim prjName
Dim prjObject
Dim parmList
Dim parm
prjName = "C:\temp\autowithparams.egp" 'Project Name
' start the app and open the project
Set app = CreateObject("SASEGObjectModel.Application.4")
Set prjObject = app.Open(prjName,"")
' discover the parameters
Set parmList = prjObject.Parameters
Wscript.Echo "Project has " & parmList.Count & " parameters."
' work with the first parameter
Set parm = parmList.Item(0)
WScript.Echo parm.Name & " parameter has default value of " & parm.DefaultValue
parm.Value = "M"
WScript.Echo parm.Name & " parameter has been set to value of " & parm.Value
' run the project
prjObject.Run
WScript.Echo parm.Name & " parameter has been set after Run to value of " & parm.Value
prjObject.Close
app.Quit
Also refer to
http://support.sas.com/techsup/unotes/SN/002/002696.html and
http://support.sas.com/faq/045/FAQ04515.html for more details.
Best regards,
Stephen