SAS on UNIX?

[MarkWik]

Dear Folks,

I am about to begin working for a DATAWAREHOUSING COMPANY that uses SAS on UNIX. The work is basically ETL (Extract, transform, load). My past experience has been only to do with PC SAS 9.2 on Windows environment and that too -only Base SAS reporting. I would like to know is that, to what extent should I have to learn UNIX? I have not worked on a production environment before, so I request all those knowledgeable people to provide any suggestions or advice with examples from their own experience.

1. Do I have to be a UNIX expert to be successful in this job?

2. What modules/concepts in UNIX is a must to learn to be able to cope?

3. Why is UNIX so important in Datawarehousing and Business intelligence companies?

To be more precise, my job is be a part of a team that would develop a BI application for a retail company. Apart from SAS, they are also using tools such as Microstrategy, Datastage, Informatica and so on. Please help with your answers.

Mark

[Patrick]

Having worked with SAS under Windows, Unix and z/OS I would say that SAS as such is pretty much the same on all platforms.

With SAS syntax as such pretty much the same it depends quite a bit what you're going to do. With Unix you will need to learn some basic command - and these command are very similar to DOS (which actually "stole" the syntax from Unix).

I love Unix and there are very powerfull "tools" there like "awk". But using SAS you don't have to learn it. It's just a plus and will sometimes help you to find an easy solution to a problem.

1. No, you don't have to be an expert.

2. A few basic Unix commands like "ls", "man" and "find" will get you started.

3. Unix is just a very powerfull and common server OS. Windows Server is catching up but entered this market later.

HTH

Patrick

[MarkWik]

Hi Patrick,

Thank you so much for a prompt response. It's interesting you mentioned "awk" too coz I was told the company is also using awk. Well yeah I was really concerned how hard it would be for me to be able to cope, but with your inputs I certainly confident enough to get there.

To be honest, I am actually very keen on to work on all kinds of SAS modules starting from Base SAS, SAS BI, SAS EG and Eminer and grow old; I kinda ignored anything to do with UNIX. I guess you would agree that to become a great SAS professional in all the above SAS modules should be hard enough right. (smiles).

Thanks very much indeed once again.

Mark

[RichardinOz]

You can find all the information on Unix commands on the internet but sometimes you do not know what command you want.  I would recommend you get a Unix book like "Unix in a nutshell" which will give you a good idea on how Unix works.

Richard