Running SAS in Amazon's EC2 Cloud

[MikeHunter]

aws. amazon. com/ ec2   offers a suite of options for performing analyses in the cloud.  I am uninformed and ignorant enough not to know the intricacies of how it would work if, for instance, one wanted to transfer the processing of a SAS analysis that had maxed out the capacity of your machine up to Amazon's cloud in an effort at relieving those local constraints.  My hunch is that this would be impossible, SAS' architecture simply wouldn't be open to it, that SAS' requirements for any processing in the cloud would necessitate purchase of one of their high performance systems for big data.

I'm not wrong, correct?

[jakarman]

Not wrong and not correct.

SAS can be run in the cloud. SAS is mentioning that in their vocubalary "SAS on demand" that can be pruchased/hired by SAS directly.

SAS can be run in the cloud as some companies have started to do that way. Mostly hidden behind marketing/crm offering and mostly using SAS-VA.

Some people/compagnies could start business SAS running as SAAS in the cloud as is done for SAP Oracle Salesforce or other competitors of SAS.   

AWS | Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) – Scalable Cloud Servers is the hardware/OS layer a SAS installation could be used on top of that.

The challenge is in implementing good SAS installation in a way conforming "standard of good practice" and SAS-70 so all contracts/parties would be covered. 

[MikeHunter]

Thanks.  I acknowledged that SAS offers cloud computing products in the body of my question.  Suggesting "SAS on demand"  does not answer it and raises concerns about whether or not my question was understood correctly to begin with.  What's more, after rereading your reply a couple of times, I can't tell from your answer whether or not I, as a stand-alone SAS user would be able to leverage Amazon's EC2 services at all...that is, without the purchase of some SAS HP product like "SAS on demand."  You see, Jaap, I'm cheap and don't want to pay any more money for this capability or introduce any more complications into things than I have to.  If I can go straight to Amazon for this and eliminate SAS as a middleman without violating my contractual agreements, then great!, that is what I want. Hacking my way into the cloud with SAS is not something I aspire to.  If I can't then I'm not interested in Amazon's service as it relates to running and enhancing SAS and will switch to R or some other analytic software that I know can be used with EC2. 

Does this make sense to you?  If it's not clear, please let me know and I will try asking it another way that is.  

[twocanbazza · Accepted solution]

Hi Mike.

You can Use AWS EC2 instance the same as you would in your internal network.  You can install and run SAS etc. You would however still need (and Pay for) the appropriate licences from SAS etc ie the Bigger the Box the bigger the Cost - and I don't believe SAS' standard licence has a pay as use (capacity) model.  You would also need to work out how to get the data etc to and from the EC2 Machine so would probably need other AWS services as well.

AWS don't have a SAS solution in their market place or have something like their SQL/Oracle service.

Regards

Barry

[MikeHunter]

Barry-

   That's what I needed to hear. 

Thanks,

Mike

[jakarman]

Mike,

My response assumed that in your position you would already have a professional background on IT.

Something more as just understanding you can put a floppy in a computer or working in your backyard in the garage.

Sorry if that did not make any sense to you, as you probably alos have missed the "data governance". 

No matter what tool you wil go for using for, yes for what ...?

You will have the challenge on those subjects at some moment. You like the answer of Barry, that is right. The issue of getting it up and running is still yours. This is, not matter what tool, an underestimated issue. I wish you good luck on that. 

By the way, I am not on the payroll of SAS.