Hello @woo,
very good an interesting question.
I think the first thing to consider is that there are several flavours of SAS Visual Analytics:
- The non-distributed version of SAS VA 7.x ( a single machine, Windows or Linux) - a full Solution
- The distributed version of SAS VA 7.x (Linux only) - a full Solution
- VAAR 7.x (which stands for Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting), which provides reduced capabilities (Explorations are not present, but enought to load to RAM the prepared data and show all kind or reports as in VA) - an optional product, which is included with most of the Solutions in 9.4. Normally, at no additional cost, specially if you will use same machines/cores as in GRID.
- VA (8.x) in SAS Viya - a product and Solution - the latest version of Visual Analytics, in a new platform (different than SAS 9, what you are used to)
That being said, if you have GRID, indeed you cannot put the Object Spawner as part of the GRID itself, but you can actually put VAAR on a separate machine or just in one of them, as long as the Object Spawner is not part of the GRID-ed services.
Then, the other option, is to have VA separately, as solution, and, indeed, load the data from GRID jobs to LASR or the Autoload folders.
Main thing is:
- Decide if you will include VAAR in GRID or one of your solutions, or if you will acquire a separate VA Solution.
- Contact your SAS Account Manager to put this in option and then get or extend the appropriate license/s and software.
Each option has got its own PROs and CONs, on budget, maintenance, installation/implementation, impact for SAS metadata, learning curve, etc. We cannot decide for you, but we and your SAS contact or partner can help you to resolve doubts.
Hope it helps.
Kind regards,
Juan
