waiting for locked datasets

[Go]

    We have several sas datasets that gets updated daily, on the other hand these datasets are being pulled by different users at the time and hence our process fails during daily update due to the lock being held from a different user.
    Is there a way to avoid this situation?

[Kurt_Bremser]

My method is to use the operating system's (UNIX) commandline to forcibly remove the dataset before creating it.

As long as one has write permission for the directory (library) containing the dataset, this can't fail.

Another method is to define a daily window for updating and stoppping the workspace server service during that time.

[JuanS_OCS]

Good ones Kurt.

Another option is to get license for SAS/SHARE, then you can avoid those kind of problems

[Kurt_Bremser]

SAS/SHARE can only update, but not replace a dataset that is in use.

So it depends if the investment in the SHARE license is justified.

[RW9]

Sounds like access should be restricted at update time.  Alternatively a staged approac, i.e. before updating the dataset a snapshot is made, this becomes available to users whilst behind the scenes the main dataset gets updated.  But personally I would want to set it up that access closed whilst the update runs, unless its lifethreatening.  

[LinusH]

What kind of updates do you have?

And how large are thables that you need shared access on?

SAS/SHARE is mainly for small data sets, and suits data entry applications, but not large DW/DM schemas.

For that SAS has SPD Server, or if your organization have an external RDBMS that they are comfortable with.