Editor's Note: Are you using SAS Visual Analytics 8.x? This Usage Note on how to audit SAS® Visual Analytics reports in SAS® Viya® may help.
With SAS Visual Analytics 7.1, you can activate capabilities to audit the SAS Visual Analytics environment – find out what reports and data were used, for example. The “SAS Visual Analytics Administrator ➤ View ➤ Usage Reports” you access an audit report. But if you combine the default SAS Visual Analytics audit data with the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart data, you can obtain even more info about the environment. This article explains how to activate the default SAS Visual Analytics audit capabilities and obtain the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart data. Future articles will detail how to create auditing reports.
Note: Click on the images to enlarge them.
What are the SAS Visual Analytics Reports for Administrators?
The SAS Visual Analytics Administrator application provides administrators with an environment to store audit data (EVDMLA) and reports (Usage reports). By default there is only one table and one predefined report available out-of-the-box. But custom data and reports can be created and managed from this area to provide administrators with information about their SAS Visual Analytics environment. In the standard configuration, only administrators and unrestricted users can access the predefined report and its underlying data.
The Reports for Administrators are composed by:
Data that are collected by the middle-tier audit service.
Named: audit_visualanalytics.sas7bdat
For a description of this table content, please refer to the SAS Visual Analytics Administration Guide (access to those with license), Chapter 3 “Security”, Key Actions Auditing, Audit Content and Coverage (p44-48).
A drop zone to store the collected data.
Located in: [SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/AppData/SASVisualAnalytics/VisualAnalyticsAdministrator/AutoLoad/EVDMLA
A SAS LASR Analytic AutoLoad library against this drop zone.
Named: Environment Manager Data Mart LASR
A LASR Analytic server to load these audit data in memory.
The default SAS LASR Analytic server named: LASR Analytic Server – [SAS Visual Analytics Root Node]
A SAS Visual Analytics Report.
Named: Administrator overview Located in the metadata folder: /Products/SAS Visual Analytics Administrator/Reports/Usage
An interface to access the usage reports
SAS Visual Analytics Hub ➤ Administrator ➤ View ➤ Usage Reports.” (“Administrator” or “Manage Environment”)
Enable the EVDMLA AutoLoad environment
Enable collection of key actions audit data. Set the va.AuditingEnabled suite-level configuration property to true, and restart the SAS Web Application
Open the SAS Management Console and connect to your SAS Metadata server as an administrator
Select the Plug-ins tab
Select Application Management ➤SAS Application Infrastructure ➤ Visual Analytics 7.1
Right-Click on “Visual Analytics 7.1″ and choose Properties
On the “Visual Analytics Properties” panel, Select the Advanced tab
On the Advanced tab, edit the “va.AuditingEnabled” property and change its value to “true”
Then Click the “OK” button to save your change
You should see something like:
2. Restart the SAS Web Application Server
On UNIX:
Log on your SAS Middle-Tier server as the SAS Installation User
Go to the SAS Configuration Level directory
cd [SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn
iii. Restart your SAS Web Application Server
./sas.servers.mid restart
On Windows:
i. Log on your SAS Middle-Tier server as a system administrator
ii. Access the Computer Management tool (Control Panel ➤ Administrative Tools), and select to Services and Applications ➤Services
iii. Select the “SAS [Config-Levn] WebAppServer SASServer1_1″ service, right-click on it, and select “Restart”
Start AutoLoad for the administrative reporting library (Environment Manager Data Mart LASR).
1. Start AutoLoad for the administrative reporting library (EVDMLA)
Log on your SAS Visual Analytics Root node as the SAS Installation User
Be sure that the account will manage the EVDMLA AutoLoad process has the appropriate access (Read/Write) on the directories listed below and their contents.
Data:
[SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/AppData/SASVisualAnalytics/VisualAnalyticsAdministrator/AutoLoad/EVDMLA(UNIX) or [SAS-Configuration-Directory]\Levn\AppData\SASVisualAnalytics\VisualAnalyticsAdministrator\AutoLoad\EVDMLA(Windows)
Scripts:
[SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/Applications/SASVisualAnalytics/VisualAnalyticsAdministrator/EVDMLA(UNIX) or [SAS-Configuration-Directory]\Levn\Applications\SASVisualAnalytics\VisualAnalyticsAdministrator\EVDMLA(Windows)
ii. Go to the EVDMLA AutoLoad scripts directory…
[SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/Applications/SASVisualAnalytics/VisualAnalyticsAdministrator/EVDMLA(UNIX) or [SAS-Configuration-Directory]\Levn\Applications\SASVisualAnalytics\VisualAnalyticsAdministrator\EVDMLA(Windows)
iii. … and schedule the EVDMLA AutoLoad process
./schedule.sh (UNIX) or ./schedule.bat (Windows)
iv. Verify that the scheduled task is running
On UNIX:crontab -l (list the scheduled jobs for the current user) On Windows: Access the Task Scheduler tool (Control Panel ➤ Administrative Tools), and look at the task in the Task Scheduler Library.
2. Log on the SAS Visual Analytics Hub as an administrator, and access the Administrator application
3. Open LASR Manage ➤ Tables
You should see something like:
Notes: In the standard configuration, the SAS Visual Analytics key actions audit data is less than 30 minutes old. Audit records are continuously generated, audit data is extracted every 15 minutes, and the extracted data is loaded every 15 minutes. To obtain data in the audit_visualanalytics.sas7bdat table, you have to perform some tasks that generate audit records (e.g.: load a table in the administrator, create and save a report in the designer, or open a data source in the explorer). After a maximum of 30 minutes, you will have the “EVDM.audit_visualanalytics” table loaded in memory, and the “Administrator overview” predefined report will contain data.
Out-of-the-box Reports For Administrators: “Administrator overview”
The predefined report provides insight into how your site uses SAS Visual Analytics.
What is the SAS Environment Manager Service Architecture Framework SAS Visual Analytics data feed?
Data from the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart can be easily loaded into SAS Visual Analytics. If the VA data feed option is enabled in SAS Environment Manager Service Architecture Framework, selected data tables from the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart are copied to a specified drop zone directory (EVDMLA). SAS Visual Analytics can then automatically load these tables from the drop zone into the application. You can enable a nightly transfer of selected tables from the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart to the SAS Visual Analytics administrative reporting drop zone. If AutoLoad is enabled for associated LASR library, the copied tables are loaded to a SAS LASR Analytic Server. There is no predefined report on the SAS Visual Analytics environment that use these data by default. Administrators will have to create their own custom report using these data. The tables copied from the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart to the drop zone are suitable for analysis and reporting with SAS Visual Analytics. The specific set of tables and their structure might change over time and in future releases. By default, the following tables are copied:
From
Table
Data
ACM
ACM.FILEMOUNTS
metric data for the file mounts in your environment
ACM.HOSTPLATFORMS
metrics for the platform-level resource monitored by SAS Environment Manager that correspond to operating systems
ACM.HTTPCHECKS
metric data for the HTTP response-checking resources created by SAS Environment Manager Extended Monitoring
ACM.IOMSERVERS
metric data for the SAS IOM servers, such as SAS Stored Process Server and SAS Pooled Workspace Server
ACM.METADATASVRS
metric data for the SAS Metadata Servers
ACM.NETWORKINTERFACE
metric data for the network interfaces
ACM.TCSERVERMGRS
metric data for individual SAS web applications
ACM.WEBAPPSERVER
metric data for SAS Web Application Server instances
ACM.WIPDATADB
metric data for the databases within the Web Infrastructure Platform Data Server
KITS
KITS.EMI_INFO
metrics on the performance of SAS Environment Manager ETL processes
Enable SAS Visual Analytics data feed
1. To initialize and enabling the Service Management Architecture, refer to the SAS Environment Manager 2.4 User Guide
2. Enable the data feed for SAS Visual Analytics
Log on to the machine on which SAS Environment Manager is installed as the SAS Installation User
(Only one deployment of the SAS Environment Manager EMI framework by Level on multiple SASApp context deployment!)
ii. Go to the EMI framework directory
[SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/Web/SASEnvironmentManager/emi-framework/bin (UNIX) or [SAS-Configuration-Directory]\Levn\Web\SASEnvironmentManager\emi-framework\bin(Windows)
iii. Enable the VA data feed
./emi_init.sh -vafeed ON (UNIX) or emi_init.bat -vafeed ON (Windows)
iv. The SAS Environment Data Mart tables and required SAS formats will be copied to the EVDMLA drop zone
[SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/AppData/SASVisualAnalytics/VisualAnalyticsAdministrator/AutoLoad/EVDMLA(UNIX) or [SAS-Configuration-Directory]\Levn\AppData\SASVisualAnalytics\VisualAnalyticsAdministrator\AutoLoad\EVDMLA(Windows)
This process is part of the ACM, APM and KITS ETL processes. These ETL Processes, when enabled, run nightly respectively at 12:00AM, 01:00AM, and 02:00AM.
v. On the Advanced tab, edit the “va.AuditingEnabled” property and change its value to “true”
vi. Then Click the “OK” button to save your change
3. Manually feed the SAS Environment Data Mart data into the SAS Visual Analytics environment.
If you do not want to wait until the next schedule of the ACM, APM, and KITS ETL processes, you can run them manually to copy the tables.
i. Go to the EMI framework directory
[SAS-Configuration-Directory]/Levn/Web/SASEnvironmentManager/emi-framework/bin (UNIX) or [SAS-Configuration-Directory]\Levn\Web\SASEnvironmentManager\emi-framework\bin(Windows)
ii. Execute the ETL processes
On UNIX:
./master_acm_etl(.sh|.bat) ./master_apm_etl(.sh|.bat) ./master_kits_etl(.sh|.bat)
On Windows:
master_acm_etl.bat master_apm_etl.bat master_kits_etl.bat
4. Log on the SAS Visual Analytics Hub as an administrator, and access the Administrator application
5. Open LASR Manage ➤ Tables
You should see something like:
Notes: After a maximum of 15 minutes, you will have all SAS Environment Manager Data Mart tables loaded in memory.
Best practice: Manage the Reports for Administrator and EVDMLA data from a dedicated LASR Analytic Server
By default, the Reports for Administrators data and reports are managed from the default SAS LASR Analytic Server. A lot of other data, reports and explorations are likely managed using this LASR Analytic Server. It is a good practice to create a dedicated LASR Analytic Server to manage the Reports for Administrators data and report(s), especially if you plan to use the SAS Environment Manager Data Mart data feed. You’ll see that the volume of data will grow quickly, and you will probably want to manage the LASR Analytic Server differently than the default one (security, logging, memory limit…). To use a dedicated LASR Analytic Server, you have to:
1. Stop the EVDMLA AutoLoad process
2. Log on the SAS Visual Analytics Hub as an administrator, and access the Administrator application
Open LASR Manage ➤
Unload all EVDMLA tables from the default LASR Analytic Server
3. Create a new LASR Analytic Server.
4. Modify the Environment Manager Data Mart LASR library to use the new dedicated LASR analytic Server.
On the Environment Manager Data Mart LASR library definition, change the data server from the default LASR Analytic Server (Named: LASR Analytic Server – [SAS Visual Analytics Root Node]) to the new dedicated LASR Analytic Server (I.E.: LASR Server for Administrators) You should see something like:
5. Restart the EVDMLA AutoLoad process
6. Log on the SAS Visual Analytics Hub as an administrator, and access the Administrator application
Open LASR Manage ➤ Tables
You should see something like:
Notes: After a maximum of 15 minutes, you will have all audit tables loaded in memory, in the new dedicated LASR Server for Administrator.
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