How SAS BI is different from Base or advance SAS

[Chandra]

Hi all

I'm a beginner of SAS and I just want to know how SAS BI is different normal SAS ?What are all the prerequisite things we need to know to learn SAS BI?

[LinusH]

Business Intelligence Software | SAS

[Chandra]

Thanks Linush for your reply but i need to know whether we can use the same SAS software for BI also or do we have any seperate SAS BI software ?

[Cynthia_sas · Accepted solution]

Hi:

  SAS Business Intelligence Platform (a.k.a Platform for Business Analytics) still has SAS software at the core, however, depending on the job role you perform, you may or may not need to know in-depth SAS knowledge. You can review our BI classes here: SAS Training - Business Intelligence path and you can compare those classes to our "Foundation" programming classes here: SAS Training - Programming path

  For example, someone who was working with building data marts and data warehouses for a BI site, might only use SAS Data Integration Studio and/or SAS OLAP Cube Studio to define target tables and source tables and build metadata and perform transformations or build OLAP cubes. Knowledge of SAS Programming will be very useful for this person. For the person working with SAS Stored Processes, knowledge of SAS programming techniques will also be useful.

  However, someone who was responsible for running pre-written reports and sending email, might only run SAS programs (as SAS Stored Processes), but they might never write a SAS program themselves. This business analyst might never use SAS Data Integration Studio, but might use the SAS Add-in for Microsoft Office or SAS Enterprise Guide  or SAS Web Report Studio every day.

  The difference between the SAS programming techniques that we teach in Programming 1 and Programming 2 classes and the SAS programming techniques that we teach in the Stored Process classes (for example) all have to do the infrastructure of the Platform -- that when you use the SAS BI Platform, the SAS Metadata Server is the "brains of the outfit" and provides a central point of contact and control for all the processes and client applications that are running on the SAS BI Platform.

  With "regular" SAS usage (outside of the BI Platform), the installation is not so complicated and submitting programs is different because the programs do not have to "go through" the metadata server for authentication and authorization to run. When you ask "whether we can use the same SAS software for BI also or do we have any separate SAS BI software" -- the answer is both YES and NO.

  Yes --the same SAS software is used for the SAS Business Intelligence Platform; BUT, in order to get familar with the SAS BI Platform, you need to have an entire installation of the Platform available -- the metadata server, the middle tier, the object spawners, the data servers, the security model, the client applications and everything. So, NO, when you practice with "regular" SAS, there are some differences between using SAS in a simple client-server mode and using SAS in the BI Platform. The good news is that SAS Enterprise Guide is one of the client applications that will work with SAS in either mode. However, if you want specifically to practice with the client applications on the BI Platform, you will need to gain access to a SAS BI Platform installation.

  I'm not sure whether that answers your question or not.

cynthia

[DaveBirch]

To paraphrase Cynthia, you can use normal SAS for all your BI tasks, but the SAS Business Intelligence Platform provides enhanced productivity and enhanced quality (from the reliability, maintainability and the user experience points of view).  For many potential BI solutions you would need to combine the use of normal SAS with other software with additional integration complexity.  So, for a developer of BI solutions you would need an adequate grounding in base SAS before learning SAS BI.

[Chandra]

Thanks for you answers...Now i understood the difference..