Hi Zachary, Thanks for providing some background. Is it possible for you to name some of those software components that are using the parallel security mechanisms. i.e. is there the possibility that some customers might not have those components and so it may not be so much of a concern for them? Having said that, I'm wondering if one of those components might be SAS Environment Manager and so used in all new SAS 9.4 platform installations? Are you also able to shed some light on why the Name attribute (known to change on some occasions) was used as an effective foreign key over an unchanging unique key like the metadata object id? Finally, I believe that the bulk user loading macros (%MDU*) still allow for a Name attribute change when updating users. Will these macros be modified in a later release to prevent Name attribute changes too? Thanks Paul ... View more

Hi Ronan, Please could you expand on your thoughts regarding how this prevents changing the security model on-the-fly? My take on this is that whilst the name now cannot be, or should not be, changed post-creation, the Display Name (which is shown to the user in most cases) can still be changed. Clearly thought would need to go into setting the Names in the first place (given they need to be unique and preferably have no whitespace/special characters) but you still have the flexibility to change the Display Name at a later date. The Name attribute is used in the userid of any Internal Accounts created, but there would normally be very few of those, and they would most likely be for admin-type people who could probably get by using the old name for login with the Internal Account when needed? I'd be interested to hear of any other areas you're aware of where a constant Name would be a concern (but where the Display Name could still be changed)? Thanks Paul ... View more

After a very quick test in SAS 9.4 M2 , I saw that a renamed user retained their link to their old private user folder. The folder had the old name but there is a metadata object association between the user and the folder that survives the rename. I could also see that with some responsible party metadata, whilst the old name could be seen in the metadata, the object association remained intact. This is by no means an endorsement of changing the name, just a follow up on a couple of items I was curious about. Obviously a quick five minute test like this is nowhere near sufficient for a large complex enterprise platform with lots of cooperating software clients/components. I would still recommend holding off any Person object name changes before finding out from SAS what software components might be impacted and what the ramifications might be. ... View more

You don't have to revert to code as yet. Using SAS Management Console and the Authorization Manager plug-in, navigate to Resource Management > By Type > Person. Right mouse click over NameOfUser and open the Properties dialog. This basic properties dialog still allows you to change the name of the object. Having said that, I would exercise caution. I'm assuming that there are good reasons for not changing the name of a user after it has been initially created, otherwise the constraint would not have been introduced in SAS 9.4. Perhaps it is related to the use of name based associations rather than object id based associations (like responsible party metadata for example)? Perhaps a SAS employee might post any additional reasons why changing the name post-creation might have some negative consequences. ... View more

As I mentioned, "In your case, since your are changing operating systems, you would need to look at the promotion technique.". If you read through the migration guide it compares the migration and promotion approaches. Migration uses SMU, whereas promotion uses the approach of installing new and then promoting using .SPK packages. SMU, among other things, requires the same operating system family. In your case you are moving from Windows to Linux, so you will need to use the promotion approach. If you read through the migration guide (for the SAS version you are moving to) it provides a lot more information and guidance. ... View more

This looks like the same issue as posted in ... View more

For the underlying reason I would look in the SAS metadata server log for error and warning messages. Having said that however, you will run into all sorts of problem trying to use a simple metadata backup to migrate content from one environment to another with different operating system types. All your directory paths will need updating, as will host names and possibly port numbers, any stored credentials, and user id formats to name a few. I would strongly recommend you use a supported method such as promotion (install-new-and-import using exported .SPK metadata packages) or migration using the SAS Migration Utility (SMU) to create a package from the old environment and use it to install a new environment. In your case, since your are changing operating systems, you would need to look at the promotion technique. For more information have a read of the SAS® 9.4 Intelligence Platform :: SAS(R) 9.4 Intelligence Platform: Migration Guide (or older version as appropriate depending on which version you are migrating to). If you're not 100% confident, I'd also suggest getting the help of SAS Professional Services, or a local SAS partner in your area, as they have a wealth of experience in this area. ... View more

Hi Scott, Try the XMLSELECT filter expression: SASLibrary[ @Engine = 'ORACLE' and @IsPreassigned = '1' ] If you have access to SAS Management Console you can also use our free Metacoda Metadata Explorer Plug-in. I wrote a blog post "Metacoda's Metadata Explorer Plug-in" about it a while back which includes a few example XMLSELECT filter expressions, and also a link to the SAS documentation that has more examples. Cheers Paul ... View more

As of SAS Management Console 9.2, the doc.zip file doesn't seem to be installed any more. If you have access to an old SAS Management Console 9.1 installation then you can find the doc.zip file, otherwise I'd suggest asking SAS Technical Support to see if you can get a copy.  The first version of our Metacoda Plug-ins was developed for use with SAS Management Console 9.1. Since then the SAS Management Console plug-in API changes, from our perspective at least, have been very small and our plug-ins also run in SAS Management Console 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4. ... View more

If you still have access to a SAS Management Console 9.1 installation you'll find it contains a doc.zip file that has some documentation and examples. ... View more