MEMSIZE MAX System Options: Pros & Cons on UNIX SAS 9.13

[JMarkW]

I'm working with very large UNIX servers. 24 processors and lots of memory.

The systems have many SAS ETL processes kicked of by CRON. The CRON entries for the ETLs typically have MEMSIZE of 1 to 2 G.

Would it be better to let MEMSIZE be MAX and let SAS 9.13 and UNIX deal with the memory management?

[LinusH]

How many ETL jobs run in paralel?
How much memory do they usually consume?

The best practice is to have SAS handle it's own swapping, since SAS could probably know better what to swap rather than the OS.

So, look in the logs for memory usage. If there is memory left in the server you either set up the general MEMSIZE, or raise it for specific memory intense jobs.

/Linus

[JMarkW]

I have one ETL that has a step that is memory intensive. I would prefer to leave the processing in memory instead of using temporary files. Memory is fast.

The system memory is around 290 gig. SAS documentation I see shows the max for a process is only 2 gig. I would prefer a setting that would go up to 40 gig or so.

Is SAS really limited to 2 gig or is that just a generic document for small systems?

Does anybody have a larger system using over 2 gig of memory for a single process?