SAS and Unix/TSO

[deleted_user]

Can someone pls direct me to SAS in Unix/TSO environments? I have some idea about Unix, but do not know the changes I need to make in SAS Code while working on Unix/TSO OS. My experience with SAS is in windows.

Thanks for any input.

Cathy

[sbb]

The SAS interface for z/OS and TSO (or batch) is discussed in the SAS Companion for z/OS. You will want to contact your SAS admin for the z/OS (IBM mainframe) environment to determine how you access SAS under TSO.

More specific to your Unix/TSO question, the SAS z/OS interfaces can access Unix System Services (USS) file structures (HFS, zFS libraries), but SAS itself does not have an interactive facility that runs under USS -- you must use SAS either in a batch job or from your TSO session.

Also, there are SAS technical (conference) papers available at the SAS support website http://support.sas.com/ for review -- here is one on this topic, found with the search facility at the support website (FYI - the OS/390 operating system preceded the z/OS operating system -- you may see both of these referenced):

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE SAS® SYSTEM ON THE OS/390 PLATFORM
http://www.sas.com/partners/directory/ibm/os390.pdf


Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

[deleted_user]

Thanks a lot for pointing me to the right direction.

Cathy

[Doc_Duke]

In addition to Scott's comments, I'll mention my own experience with SAS on Solaris Unix; I also work in Windoze. The SAS programming statement are 99.44% identical. Any SAS statement that reference the outside "world" (INFILE, FILE, LIBNAME, etc.) will need to change. If you set yourself up with parallel directory structures, those changes can be as little as changing the drive letter to a root level directory and reversing the slashes.

Doc Muhlbaier
Duke

[deleted_user]

I feel more confident hearing that the code remains almost the same in windows and Unix OS.

Thank you very much for the information.

[sbb]

Hopefully your SAS z/OS Admin will have experience setting other users up on the IBM mainframe z/OS TSO/USS environment, specifically with regard to your security package and adding what's called an "OMVS segment" providing you access to Unix System Services (USS), now pretty much required for SAS operation.

And, you will need to work with your z/OS MVS storage management staff to get a zFS (or legacy HFS) data storage file, if you intend to maintain your SAS databases under USS as opposed to maintaining your SAS databases under the current/legacy mainframe-standard OS SAS data library datasets.

As part of your migration, the determination will need to be made how you intend to publish and host your web-content that is SAS-generated, either using the IBM-supplied (note I didn't say free) HTTP Server, a z/OS web server, or the alternative which will require you to generate your HTML/graphics content on z/OS and then transfer that data to your web server platform (using pax likely). This could be cumbersome and must be well-planned. I would encourage you to push for using the mainframe-based HTTP (web) Server which is likely configured already by your z/OS SYSPROGs, but may not be ready for production usage.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.