SAS Viya allows administrators to interactively define and manage Base SAS Libraries for the SAS Compute Server. The addition of this new feature was a pre-requisite required to support the migration of SAS 9 Base libraries to libraries in the Viya Compute Server. I described this functionality in detail in my last post. In this post, I will review the new migration functionality that supports the import of SAS 9 Libraries to Compute libraries in Viya.   SAS Viya Content Migration has always migrated Base SAS Libraries, but until now they have only been migrated to CAS Libraries in Viya. In 2022.1.3 support is added for the migration of libraries to CAS and/or Compute libraries.   This is a handy new addition to the migration toolset. While some of the content migrated from 9.4 like Visual Analytic Reports does require the data to be available in CAS, much of the content also requires data libraries to be available in the Compute Server. For example, Enterprise Guide Projects and Data Integration Studio Jobs are migrated to SAS Studio Flows, and Stored Process are migrated to Viya Jobs. Both Flows and Jobs use the Compute server and as result require SAS libraries to be available to compute in order to access data. Prior to the 2022.1.3 release, a Viya Administrator had to make the required libraries available by coding a libname statement in the Compute Server Autoexec as a manual step separate from the migration process.    Importing Libraries to Viya   To migrate libraries, in SAS  9.4 use SAS Management Console to export the library definitions to a package file. In Viya 2022.1.3 the Import User Interface in SAS Environment manager has been enhanced to support the creation of CAS and Compute libraries.   The default import settings create: A CAS and Compute Library The CAS library is on the default CAS server cas-shared-default The Compute library is on both the SAS Studio and Job Execution Compute contexts   While these are the defaults, the user interface does allow you to map to additional CAS servers and Compute Contexts. In SAS Environment Manager during import, the Data Resources tab on the Mapping screen surfaces the new user interface.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.    At the end of the import process, the Result screen gives a detailed description of what has happened. The CAS library was created, and in addition, a Data Source representing the Compute library was defined and added to the two selected Compute Contexts.       As described in my previous post you can manage the new library in two locations in SAS Viya.   SAS Environment Manager   In SAS Environment Manager you can find the new library in the context definition. Select Contexts > Compute Context and edit the SAS Studio Compute Context. Select the Resources tab and you will see the Sales Data library is available.     SAS Studio   As a Viya Administrator in SAS Studio select the Libraries node in the explorer. Check the option to display disconnected libraries and you will see the Sales Data library.     The import result message stated that the library was added to the compute context, but the  “library is not set for pre-assignment”.    In order for the Content to work the library needs to be assigned/connected so that is available to the SAS process when a compute session starts. To do this a Viya Administrator has a choice of the two interfaces, both approaches have the same impact.   In SAS Environment Manager, check the “assign” check box on the Resource in the Compute Context (shown above). In SAS Studio, select the Disconnected Library and edit the connection. Under “Allow all users to view the library connection” check the box “Add as connected”.     Now that the libraries are imported to both CAS and Compute, and set to be pre-assigned, the data will be available for use with the imported SAS 9 content.   Summary   To summarize, Viya Compute libraries can now be:​ Defined in the Resources section of Viya Compute Contexts​ Defined and Managed in SAS Studio​ Assigned automatically when Compute sessions start.​ Created when importing  SAS package files that include SAS 9 path-based SAS libraries.​ Here are some links to additional information and some related SAS 9.4 to Viya Migration content: Content Assessment Download SAS 9.4 to Viya Content Migration Documentation Migration of Stored Processes to Jobs (update) Content Assessment delivers utility applications to support SAS Viya Content Migration Content Assessment: SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization Go with the flow; migrating Enterprise Guide Projects to SAS Studio Flows SAS Viya 2021.2 – Migrating SAS Data Integration (DI) Studio Jobs to SAS Studio Flows A first look at Migration from SAS 9.4 to Viya 4 SAS Demo | SAS Viya Migration of Enterprise Guide Project to SAS Studio Flows – YouTube SAS Demo | Using the modifySASCode Content Assessment Application – YouTube SAS Demo | Migrating SAS Data Integration Studio Jobs to SAS Studio Flows   Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... 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New functionality in SAS Viya now allows administrators to define and manage Base SAS Libraries for the SAS Programming Run-Time engine. This is accomplished using SAS Studio to define Connection to a Library Data Source and SAS Environment Manager to manage the availability of the data source in Compute Contexts. In 2022.1.3 this new feature will support the migration of SAS 9 Base libraries to libraries in the Viya Programming runtime. In this first post, I will look at how you manage Connections to Data Sources in Viya. In a follow-up post, I will look at the migration of Base libraries from SAS 9 to libraries on the Compute server in SAS Viya.   How to Persist a Connection to a Base Library Data Source   In SAS Studio the “New Library Connection” dialog allows you to define a Library connection to a Base SAS library Data Source. What this does is make a SAS library available for a SAS session. The library is allocated based on the "metadata" in the Data Source Definition.   There are two ways to persist a library definition beyond the current SAS session.   They are shown in the screenshot below:   Assign and connect to data sources at startup Allow all users to view the library connection Let's look at what these options do.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Assign and connect to data sources at startup   Firstly, individual users can Assign and connect to data sources at startup.     Selecting this option adds the LIBNAME statement to the SAS Studio autoexec file for all Contexts but only for this user. As you can see in the image below, the LIBNAME statement in the autoexec references the data source with the LIBDEF= options using the data sources URI. The LIBDEF= option on the LIBNAME retrieves pre-defined LIBNAME information from the Data Sources microservice and performs a LIBNAME assignment using that information.   SAS Help Center: LIBRARYDEFINITION= LIBNAME Statement Option     Allow all users to view the library connection   A Viya administrator(member of the SAS Administrators group) has additional options available that allow them to define a Connection to a Data Source that is available to all users of one or many compute contexts. This functionality is governed by selecting Allow all users to view the library connection.     If you choose:   connected makes the library available and connects to it for all users when a SAS Session using the current Context starts disconnected makes the library available but DOES NOT connect to it for all users when a SAS Session using the current Context starts.   Disconnected libraries are useful for libraries that are used infrequently, they can save on server startup times.   There are some important details you should be aware of before you create Connections to a Base SAS library data source. To define a connection, you must have the following:   Path mounted to the Compute Server and in the allowlist SAS Studio configured to allow access to the filesystem (showserverfiles) SAS Studio configured so that the physical path is navigable under the custom path (filenavigationroot=CUSTOM) and path of library under fileNavigationCustomRootPath   To Configure SAS Studio in Environment Manager under Configuration > All Services select SAS Studio and edit sas.studio. SAS Studio Configuration Options are documented here.    In SAS Studio the Allow all users to view the library connection option applies to each Context separately. Creating a Connection to a Data Source in SAS Studio also makes the resource available to all the Contexts in SAS Environment Manager. Let's look at how we can manage the connections in EV   SAS Administrators Manage Connections to Data Sources in SAS EV   For any of the Connections to Data Sources created in SAS Studio, an administrator can edit the properties of  a context to:   Add the library to the Context. Assign the libraries automatically for all users when a SAS session using the Context starts (connected) Make the libraries available for all users when a SAS session using the Context starts  (disconnected) Keep the default LIBNAME or use a different LIBNAME for the Context   To access this functionality select Contexts in EV, edit the context, and in the dialog select Resources.     Security   The data source definitions do not reside in folders and are created with READ permissions for all authenticated users. Operating system permissions to the library physical paths are respected by the Compute server when the libref is assigned. This means that if a user cannot read the file-system directory they will not see the library in their SAS session.   Permissions on the definitions could be changed using the authorization plug-in of the sas-viya CLI. To do this you will need the URI of the data source. TIP: interactively the easiest way to find the URI is to select Assign and connect to data sources at startup and then view the URI in the autoexec. In batch, you can use your favorite REST client. Here I use callrestapi from the pyviyatools: callrestapi.py -m get -e "/dataSources/providers/Compute/sourceDefinitions?filter=eq(name,'Financial Data')"   Libraries in the Compute Server Autoexec   Prior to the release of this new functionality an administrator had to add a libname statement to the autoexec of the Compute Server in SAS Environment Manager to have SAS libraries be made available to users on the startup of a SAS session. I covered how to do that in this post.   This functionality is still available. These libnames can be added using a traditional LIBNAME statement or a LIBNAME statement that references the data source definition. Libraries allocated in this way are assigned and connected for all SAS Compute sessions and may not be modified using the interface in SAS Studio.   Summary   Recent updates for SAS Environment Manager and SAS Studio make it easier for Viya administrators to manage the availability of Base SAS Libraries to Viya Compute Servers. In this post, I have described these changes and how you might use them. The two main takeaways are administrators can:   Create and Manage Connections to Data Sources in SAS Studio Manage the availability of Connections to Data Source in SAS Environment Manager.   It is important to note that this is the first step in making it easier to manage libraries in Compute. The data source definition provides metadata around connections to libraries within Viya.  More work is planned in this area to provide some of the robust functionality we had in SAS 9.4 around management and authorization etc.   The availability of data source definitions that define the Base libraries has enabled, in 2022.1.3 the migration of Base SAS Libraries to Viya Compute libraries in support of migrated content that uses the Compute server (Studio Flows, Jobs, etc.). I will cover how the migration of SAS 9 libraries to Viya works in a follow-up post.   Many thanks to my colleagues Scott McCauley, Amy Peters, and Dave Mackie for their assistance with this post.   Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Two years ago wrote a post about the migration of SAS 9.4 Stored Processes to Viya Jobs in Viya 3.5. In the world of monthly Viya releases, things change fast. It is time for an update on this topic. Stored Processes are a very popular feature in SAS 9.4. They are used in reporting, analytics, and web application development. In Viya the equivalent is jobs. In this post, we will look at what a Viya job is, how you migrate your Stored Processes, and what happens to them as they migrate to Viya jobs.   SAS 9.4 Stored Processes are migrated to Jobs in Viya(Job Definition). A SAS Viya job consists of a SAS program and its definition(metadata related to the program). Just like Stored Processes jobs, have an execution URL that you can share with others at your site. The execution URL can be entered into a web browser to run the job. The job can also be run from within SAS Studio. When running a job from SAS Studio Viya Viya uses the SAS Studio Compute Context, when running a job from a URL Viya uses the Job Execution Compute Context.   Jobs can include task prompts(XML) or an HTML form to provide a user interface. When the user selects an option in the prompt and submits the job, the data that is specified in the form or task prompt is passed to the SAS session as global macro variables. The SAS program runs and the results are returned to the web browser. Sounds a lot like a stored process!   For more information on:   Job Definitions, Job Requests, Job Flows, etc see Viya Jobs object model Authoring jobs in SAS Studio see SAS® Studio Developer’s Guide: Working with Jobs Migrating Stored Processes to Jobs Exporting   Stored processes can be exported from SAS 9.4 using the export wizard in SAS Management Console or the SAS 9.4 Platform Object Framework command-line tool ExportPackage.   In addition, SAS Content Assessment now provides tools that support the execution phase of a migration project. I introduced these tools in this post: Content Assessment delivers utility applications to support SAS Viya Content Migration   The createSASPackages application creates SAS packages (.spk files) for SAS objects that you intend to migrate from SAS 9 to SAS Viya. Currently, createSASPackages supports Data Integration Studio Jobs and Stored Processes.   In order to use createSASPackages, the SAS Content Assessment must be installed on the same machine as:   SAS 9.4 Foundation SAS 9.4 Platform Object Framework   The createSASPackages application uses as input a CSV file downloaded from a SAS Content Assessment Report. After running the Content Assessment codeCheck application for your stored processes use the “SAS 9 Code Check for SAS Stored Processes” report, to download a CSV file of Compatible Stored Processes. This CSV filet can then be input to the createSASPackages application.       Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.     Run createSASPackages and input the CSV file. The createSASPackages application creates a SAS package for each object in the CSV. createSASPackages uses the settings established in the Content Assessment metaparms.sas to connect to the SAS 9.4 metadata server, and settings in the setenv.yaml(ASSESSMENT_PACKAGES_OUTPUT_LOCATION) to determine where packages are output.   createSASPackages.exe --source-file " Summary of compatible programs.csv"           If your Stored Process code is stored in physical files, in order to include the code, you must use a SAS Administrator identity associated with a host account that has access to all the stored processes and any physical code files (specify this account in Content Assessment metaparms.sas).   Importing   To import your stored processes, there are three options: SAS Environment Manager Import Wizard Transfer plug-in of the SAS Viya command-line interface(cli) Content Assessment importSASPackages In the first two methods, you can import a package file that contains many objects of different types. Using the Import Wizard in SAS Environment Manager,  select your .spk file and navigate through the steps in the wizard.     Importing with the transfer plug-in of the sas-viya CLI is a multi-step process:   upload the package file to the Viya target environment import the package     # upload to Viya and store id from the output import_id=$(sas-viya transfer upload --file "Finance-DataSupport.spk" | jq -r .id) # import package with id sas-viya -q --output text transfer import --id "$import_id"     The importSASPackages application delivered with Content Assessment supports importing multiple package files at the same time. The application imports packages that include Stored Processes or DI Studio Jobs, it uses the transfer plug-in of the SAS Viya CLI to import the content of those files to SAS Viya. It is designed to be used with package files created by the createSASPackages application.   Requirements to use the importSASPackages application:   installed on the same machine as the SAS Viya CLI (minimum release 1.7.11) the SAS Viya CLI must include at a minimum the 1.20.0 release of the transfer plug-in. can access the Viya environment can access the directory with the SAS Package files.   Authenticate to SAS Viya and run importSASPackages. Pass the application the location of the sas-viya CLI and the directory containing the packages.   importSASPackages.exe --sas-viya-path "D:\\ViyaHome\\CLI\\sas-viya.exe" --source-location "D:\workshop\SAS9ContentAssessment\assessment\SASPackages\Lev1\Foundation\gelcorp\financecontent\Reports"     What Happens?   A SAS 9 stored process is converted to a SAS Viya job definition. The job definition is created in the same folder and uses the same name as the source stored process. The Job Definitions can be run in SAS Studio or directly via a URL. The new job definition includes the:   Job metadata SAS Code Task Prompts.     Data   The data is not included in the promotion process. However, it must be made available to the Viya Compute server so that the code and any dynamic prompts can access it. There are two Viya server contexts that need to have access to the data:   Job Execution Context: used when running jobs via a URL SAS Studio Context: used when running jobs from SAS Studio   To make the data available the compute server has to access it via a libname, and the table must exist in the library. One way to do is to use the Autoexec of the compute server. in SAS Viya 4 this is done using SAS Environment Manager. You can see how to do that in this post; Modifying Server Startup Configuration in Viya    Support for the import of Base libraries to Compute libraries is under development and will be available soon. Look for details in an upcoming post.   SAS Code   The SAS code that makes up the stored process is copied without modification to the Viya job definition. In many cases, the code will need to be edited so that it will run in the Viya environment. The SAS code in the definition can be modified using SAS Studio. Edit the code so that any:   paths to libnames, filenames, etc., in the new job point to the location of the data in Viya other SAS 9 metadata-related code is removed from the stored process   As you test your new jobs in Viya there may be additional changes needed to get them running in Viya.   Prompts   There are two types of prompts in SAS Viya Task prompts(XML) and custom steps (JSON). Currently, prompts that were defined in metadata in the SAS 9 stored process are converted to the Task prompts and stored within the job definition.  The XML for the prompt definition can be accessed and edited from SAS Studio or the SAS Job Execution Web App. For more information on working with task prompts in Viya see the Developers Guide to Writing Custom Tasks.   If you have shared prompts it is recommended that you select "Include dependent objects" when exporting from SAS 9.4. If you do not select this option any shared prompts will be omitted from the package. If the libnames and tables used in prompts are included in the package the SAS 9  library and table definitions referenced in dynamic prompts will be converted to use a library.table reference in Viya.  When this happens the XML for the prompt will include the libname.tablename of the dataset used to populate the prompt values.       Issues encountered converting SAS 9 prompts to Viya SAS Prompt Interface will cause warning messages to be included at the beginning of the XML defining the prompt interface.   Running the Job   As I mentioned earlier you can run the job from SAS Studio or from the Job Execution Web Application. You can also run the job from a URL just like you could with Stored Processes in SAS 9.4. To get the URL for the job select the Job properties in SAS Studio, the URL is stored in the Job submit property.     I hope you found this post useful, here are some links to additional information and some related SAS 9.4 to Viya Migration content:   Content Assessment Download SAS 9.4 to Viya Content Migration Documentation Content Assessment delivers utility applications to support SAS Viya Content Migration Content Assessment: SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization Go with the flow; migrating Enterprise Guide Projects to SAS Studio Flows SAS Viya 2021.2 – Migrating SAS Data Integration (DI) Studio Jobs to SAS Studio Flows A first look at Migration from SAS 9.4 to Viya 4 SAS Demo | SAS Viya Migration of Enterprise Guide Project to SAS Studio Flows - YouTube SAS Demo | Using the modifySASCode Content Assessment Application - YouTube   Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

In this post, I will look at a new feature introduced in SAS Viya 2022.1.1, and enabled by default in stable 2023.01 the SAS Startup Sequencer. The components that comprise SAS Viya are designed to start in any order. This is because they take advantage of the built-in capabilities of Kubernetes to maintain the “desired state”. On startup, all Viya pods start at the same time and Kubernetes works to establish a “running” state for all the pods that make up the Viya deployment. This process continues until all Pods are running. As a result, SAS Viya can start without any built-in “SAS” logic in the startup process. However, as we know from experience with Viya 3.x, some SAS components cannot operate before the components they are dependent upon start. For example, all Viya Services will require the Configuration Server, the Infrastructure Data Server, and the Message Server to be started before they can begin to perform their function.    That is not a problem for Viya on Kubernetes. Services that cannot start will just keep retrying until the components they are dependent on are available and they can start successfully. That is all good stuff and very Kubernetes compliant. However, from an efficiency and resources perspective, it can be a problem. The constant restart attempts of pods can consume a large amount of CPU and Memory and slow the whole process down.   Introduced in Viya 2022.1.1, and enabled by default in 2023.01, and later the Startup Sequencer changes this behavior. The Startup Sequencer forces SAS Viya to start in an order that is more logical for SAS software and minimizes the usage of resources like memory and CPU. How do we use it? SAS Viya 2023.01 and later In SAS Viya 2023.01 and later the start sequencer is enabled by default. No action is required to use it.   To provide full flexibility to the Viya Administrator an overlay is provided that will disable the functionality provided by the SAS Startup Sequencer. To disable the Startup Sequencer add <project-dir>/sas-bases/overlays/startup/disable-startup-transformer.yaml to the transformers block in your base kustomization.yaml ( $deploy/kustomization.yaml ) file. Ensure that disable-startup-transformer.yaml is listed after sas-bases/overlays/required/transformers.yaml .   ... transformers: ... - sas-bases/overlays/required/transformers.yaml - sas-bases/overlays/startup/disable-startup-transformer.yaml   SAS Viya 2022.1.1 to 2023.01 Prior to 2023.01 Startup Sequencer is NOT implemented by default and an overlay is supplied that optionally implements the Startup Sequencer.   The overlay is delivered in the sas-bases directory at <project-dir>/sas-bases/overlays/startup/ordered-startup-transformer.yaml and its use is documented in <project-dir>/sas-bases/examples/startup/README.md". The usage is simple, reference the overlay in the transformers section of your kustomization.yaml before the line that includes "- sas-bases/overlays/required/transformers.yaml".   ... transformers: ... - sas-bases/overlays/startup/ordered-startup-transformer.yaml - sas-bases/overlays/required/transformers.yaml   With this change made build and apply the manifest to implement the transform.  If you do this step at initial deployment, then the startup sequence is respected when the software deploys. If you do this step post-deployment it will restart some of the pods and subsequently, the startup sequence is respected the next time you stop and start your Viya environment.   NOTE: if prior to 2023.01 you have implemented Startup Sequencer using the ordered-startup-transformer.yaml overlay, in 2023.02 and later it is no longer required. You can remove the line from your kustomization.yaml file. If you do not remove the line it will be ignored and have no negative impact on the deployment. How does it work?   The transform adds an init container (start-sequencer) to the Viya deployments and stateful sets. An init container is a container that runs:   when a pod starts  to completion   before the next container in a Pod starts.     The start-sequencer init container enforces the startup sequence by:   Allowing the core services to start first, e.g., the Infrastructure Data Server, Configuration Server, CAS operator, Readiness service, etc. Pausing the startup of the other services when their start-sequencer init container runs until their dependent services are started.   The init container simply performs a sleep and waits for the availability of a dependent resource in the previous step. You can see this in action if you review the log of any of the init containers:    Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   The current enforced startup order is summarized below. The software essential proceeds through each stage of the process until all services are running.         NOTE: the diagram does not detail every service in the environment.   The start sequencer adds a label to each POD where it is implemented. To see if you have the start-sequencer implemented in your environment you can run the following command, if any pods are returned, then the start sequencer is implemented.   kubectl get pods -l sas.com/start-sequencer=true -n mynamespace   Limited testing shows some improvement in startup time, but for the moment the sample size is very small. I expect we might see more improvement in environments where resources are constrained. If you do implement this feature, please report back with your experiences.     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

New to SAS Viya the CAS caslib (srcType=CAS) is a CAS library that has as its source in-memory data in a different CAS library. In this post I will look at how, and why you would use the CAS type of CAS library.  It doesn’t seem that long ago that the CAS library was a new and sometimes confusing concept. I say it doesn’t seem that long ago, but it was. 😊  I recorded a youtube video in 2017 SAS Viya CAS Libraries (Caslibs) Simplified. The video is still relevant if you need a brief introduction to CAS libraries.   To recap, a CAS library provides access to data from a data source environment and access to in-memory tables that are loaded to CAS from the data source. A caslib’s data source can be a path on a filesystem, a database, a SAS 9.4 LASR library, and now another CAS library. Path-based CAS libraries are one of the most commonly used, using a path-based caslib you can easily load sas7bdat or sashdat from a path on the file system into memory for processing in Viya. With this new type of CAS library, we can now define a caslib that has as its data source in-memory tables in another CAS server. Data can then be loaded from a CAS library in one CAS server to a different CAS server and CAS library using native SAS technology.   Why would you want to do that?  Well, up to this point it has not been easy to copy data between caslib using native SAS tools. This is something that we can now do using a caslib of scrtype=CAS. You could copy data between CAS libraries in two different deployments or between CAS libraries in two different CAS servers in the same deployment.   In my case, I was working on migration between two Viya 4 environments where I had to move in-memory files from one CAS server to another. I have two Viya environments in two separate namespaces in the same K8s cluster. I have some in-memory files in the VAModels caslib in from35 that I want to copy to the VAModels caslib in Viya in my target namespace. To do this you have to:   Create a caslib in the target namespace, called "transfer" that has as its source the VAModels caslib in the from35 environment. Load tables into memory in this new transfer caslib. Persist the in-memory tables to the path of the VAModels caslib in the target namespace.   The diagram below shows the process of copying the data from the VA models CAS library on one CAS server to the VA models CAS library on a different CAS server. In this case, the two CAS servers are in two different Kubernetes namespaces.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Step 1) Define a caslib with srcType=CAS in the target   The first step is, in the target environment, to define a CAS library with srcType=CAS. The target CAS library will point at the CAS server and caslib in the source environment. CAS libraries can be defined in multiple ways (caslib statement, proc CAS, etc.) Here we define the CAS library using the table.addcaslib using the following attributes:   srctype=CAS cashost=controller.sas-cas-server-default.target the hostname of the CAS controller in the source environment caslib=VAModels is the name of the caslib that I want to copy from in the source environment.   The cashost setting can be retrieved from the hostknownby setting in CAS configuration. In SAS Environment Manager in the Servers area assume the Super-User role then select Configuration > CAS Configuration.     This code creates the caslib, displays information about the caslib, and lists the tables. This process has made in-memory tables in the VAModels caslib in the source environment(from35) available to the transfer caslib in the target environment(target).   cas transfersess; proc cas; /* add a caslib that has as its source the a caslib on a different CAS server */ table.addcaslib / name="transfer", description="source for data transfer", dataSource={srctype="CAS", user="geladm", password="lnxsas", cashost="controller.sas-cas-server-cas-shared-default.from35", caslib="VAModels" }; table.caslibinfo / caslib="transfer"; table.fileinfo / caslib="transfer"; quit;    Step 2) Load to memory in the target caslib from the memory of the source caslib   The next step will be to load the tables into memory. They are currently accessible in the source of the "target" CAS library, the code will load them into memory in the VAmodels CAS library.   To be clear what is happening here, our transfer CAS libraries data source is the in-memory space of a different CAS library on a different CAS server, as a result, we are loading tables from the memory of one CAS library and server into memory in another CAS library and server. In this case, the CAS servers are in two separate deployments, but they could be in the same deployment.   /* drop the current table if it exists */ /* allows you to run the code multiple times*/ table.droptable / caslib="VAModels" name="TRAIN1626187802213" quiet="TRUE"; table.droptable / caslib="VAModels" name="TRAIN1626187176671" quiet="TRUE"; /* Load the table from the transfer CAS caslib to the memory space of the VAModels caslib */ table.loadtable / caslib="transfer" path="TRAIN1626187802213" casout={caslib="VAModels",name="TRAIN1626187802213",promote=TRUE}; table.loadtable / caslib="transfer" path="TRAIN1626187176671" casout={caslib="VAModels",name="TRAIN1626187176671",promote=TRUE};   Step 3) Persist the data in the target CAS library's source   As we know in-memory data does not persist across restarts of the CAS server. The target VAModels caslib is a path-based caslib. This step will save the in-memory tables to the source path of the VAModels caslib. After this step is completed, in the future the data will be available to load from the source of the VAmodels CAS library in the target.   /* save the table as a caslib in the source of the target VAModels caslib */ table.save / caslib="VAModels" name="TRAIN1626187802213" table={caslib="VAModels",name="TRAIN1626187802213"} permission="GROUPWRITEPUBLICREAD" replace=True; /* save the table as a caslib in the source of he target path caslib */ table.save / caslib="VAModels" name="TRAIN1626187176671" table={caslib="VAModels",name="TRAIN1626187176671"} permission="GROUPWRITEPUBLICREAD" replace=True;     Conclusion   The CAS CAS library is a useful new feature. I am sure you can think of other use-cases it would support. In migration scenarios, it will help in moving data between CAS servers in support of migrated content. In Viya 4 moving data between deployments can be more complex and require the assistance of a Kubernetes administrator. The CAS CAS library allows us to move data natively using SAS code. This can help keep the process under the control of the SAS Administrator.     ... View more

Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn how the command-line interfaces (CLIs) support automation and allow administrators to perform numerous administrative tasks in batch as an alternative to using the SAS Environment Manager interface.   Watch the webinar You will learn: How to install the Viya CLI. The benefits of using the Viya CLI. How Viya CLI helps to automate post-deployment tasks that configure and load data and content to a new system. SAS Viya on Kubernetes and in the cloud makes it easy to spin up new, fresh environments.   The questions from the Q&A segment held at the end of the webinar are listed below and the slides from the webinar are attached.   Q&A I think I remember seeing a HOUSEKEEPING plugin in SAS-ADMIN. Is there a similar plugin in SAS Viya and if so what does it do? I don't recall that being in sas-admin. The plugins are slightly different between sas-admin and sas-viya so there are some you may have seen before that are not in sas-viya.   Are CLIs by default available in Viya 3.5 or 3.4 or is there an extra process involved to install this? You have to download the CLI separately, from e.g. https://support.sas.com/downloads/package.htm?pid=2133. The easiest way to find it is to search the web for 'download sas-admin CLI' or 'download sas-viya CLI'.   Do CLI Plugins come with SAS Viya software? It is not part of your SAS Viya software order, but anyone can download it at no extra cost from the SAS website.   Hi, does this CLI application require admin authorization to start up the app because I tried and a window popped up and closed? No, any user can run the CLI. Your capabilities will be limited to those permitted for the account with which you authenticate.   Can we execute regular UNIX command from sas-viya CLI? No, you can only execute commands belonging to the specific sas-viya CLI plugins.   How often are the CLI and its plugins updated? They're updated fairly frequently. Viya has a new release every month and the CLI, maybe once a month, every two months, and the plugins about the same. So, I would check back monthly. If you go to support.sas.com on the downloads page there's a tab with what's being released that month. If you go to that tab you would see if there was a new executable or any new plugins. It's also in the SAS Viya Administration guide’s “What’s New” section. If any plugins change, you can see if something changed in there.   How can I see what plugins are available? It’s “SAS Viya plugins” and you pass it the repository and you see “list repo plugins” and that will list all the plugins that are available from the repository. If you want to see the plugins that are available locally, it's “SAS Viya plugins list” and that will show you what plugins you have installed in your local environment. So, you can look at what's available and you can look at what you've got.   Does the CLI work with Viya 3.x and Viya 4? Yes, there's a Viya 3.x one called SAS Admin(sas-admin). Everything I showed you today relating to SAS Viya(sas-viya) would work with SAS Admin, it's just a different executable name. So, the SAS Admin one, you use for Viya 3 and the SAS Viya one, you use for Viya 4. We just renamed it.   Instead of user name and password can you use a common secret keyID and secret key for a common login for many users? It’s designed to be used with individual users authenticating so that when you install it, the plugins actually go into the user's home directory. So, it's not really designed for that particular use case. You can create a shared version of the CLI and I guess you could share secrets, but that's not the way it's designed to be used.   Recommended Resources SAS Viya Command-Line Interface for Administration Keeping the SAS Administration Command-Line interfaces up-to-date Automating post-deployment SAS Viya tasks with REST and the administration CLI YouTube: SAS Viya Administration | Command Line Interfaces Viya Command-Line Interface Documentation You CAN take it with you! Saving SAS Viya Content   Want more tips? Be sure to subscribe to the Ask the Expert board to receive follow up Q&A, slides and recordings from other SAS Ask the Expert webinars.   ... View more

Hi SAS Viya Community, I’m presenting a live “Ask the Expert” webinar on March 10 th , 11 AM – Noon ET entitled How Do I Use Command-Line Interface in SAS® Viya®?  I’ll cover how the command-line interfaces (CLIs) support automation and allow administrators to perform numerous administrative tasks in batch as an alternative to using the SAS Environment Manager interface. Bring your questions. I’ll also host a live Q&A session at the end of the webinar.   You will learn: How to install the Viya CLI. The benefits of using the Viya CLI. How Viya CLI helps to automate post-deployment tasks that configure and load data and content to a new system.  Reserve your spot for the webinar.   Want more tips? Be sure to subscribe to the Ask the Expert board to receive follow up Q&A, slides and recordings from this and other SAS Ask the Expert webinars.   Can't join the live event? You can view this and other Ask the Expert sessions on-demand here. ... View more

Hi SAS Administration and Deployment Community, I’m presenting a live “Ask the Expert” webinar on March 10 th , 11 AM – Noon ET entitled How Do I Use Command-Line Interface in SAS® Viya®?  I’ll cover how the command-line interfaces (CLIs) support automation and allow administrators to perform numerous administrative tasks in batch as an alternative to using the SAS Environment Manager interface. Bring your questions. I’ll also host a live Q&A session at the end of the webinar.   You will learn: How to install the Viya CLI. The benefits of using the Viya CLI. How Viya CLI helps to automate post-deployment tasks that configure and load data and content to a new system. Reserve your spot for the webinar.   Want more tips? Be sure to subscribe to the Ask the Expert board to receive follow up Q&A, slides and recordings from this and other SAS Ask the Expert webinars.   Can't join the live event? You can view this and other Ask the Expert sessions on-demand here.  ... View more

I was asked a question recently about how a user would take their content from a running Viya Deployment and save it. The question was raised in the context of SAS Hackathon participants saving the content they created when the event is completed. This is not an uncommon scenario in the world of cloud computing where environments can be spun up and torn down quickly. In this post, I will review the options available for saving and restoring content and provide you with some reference material to help with these tasks.   This is a topic that comes up regularly.   Some other use cases are:   In GEL in the context of running classes, we need to spin up environments and seed them with the content that the students need to perform the hands-on exercise. SAS Education has this same requirement. Providing on-demand SAS environments in the cloud is another good use case. So how do we deal with this scenario where we work in an environment that has a short lifespan, but we want to make sure we can keep, and restore our content when the environment is retired? There is good news and bad news. The good news is we have a lot of tools available to perform and even automate this process. The bad news is it can be complex and uses a variety of different tools depending on the content and configuration created.   The tools available lead to two main approaches. One saves the whole environment, while the other tries to save only selected content.   Save and Restore everything: Backup and Restore   If you want to save an entire system the SAS Viya Backup and Restore functionality is the best approach. A full-system migration is when you backup and restore to a new environment.  This approach is documented in the SAS Help Center: SAS Viya: Full-System Migration    A SAS Viya backup will include most all user-created content and configuration. Including:   Content saved in the SAS Infrastructure Data Server such as reports (including SAS Visual Analytics reports), comments, authorization rules, attachments, audit records, user preferences, and data source definitions. Configuration settings and definitions for infrastructure and applications. These settings are saved in SAS Configuration Server (Consul). Application configuration settings include user interface (UI) themes (for example, the SAS Visual Analytics UI theme) and batch run date (for example, batch date of running SAS Visual Analytics reports). CAS access controls, configuration, and global caslib definitions are backed up. CAS data stored on the default CAS  persistent volumes.   Several items are not covered by the Viya backup. Including:   Kubernetes manifest and related items. User home directories. Other data sources, such as data in Third-party databases, Data that is loaded into memory, and Data that is stored on remote file systems (such as path-based data sources including PATH and DNFS).   You can save these items by using other techniques. Data on the file system can be backed up using Kuberbenets and OS (Operating System) commands, in-memory data can be persisted to the file system and backed up, third-party databases are usually governed by their own backup and restore procedures. I covered the details of how-to Backup and Restore in a previous blog post. You can check out this post for a review of the steps involved in backing up and restoring a SAS Viya environment.   A full backup is great, but it is a full backup, you get everything, and you do not get a choice. In addition, the restore process restores the complete environment, again you cannot do a partial restore. If you happen to be the only user of the deployment, as is the case in the SAS Viya Hackathon, this approach may be applicable for you. If you share a deployment with others, then this approach may be less attractive. Fortunately, we have other tools which can choose what to save and load subsets of content.   Select what to Save and Restore: Content Migration   The Content Migration tools support the export and import of Viya Content and Configuration. Using these tools, you can save the important parts of your environment and restore them later. Let us review what can be accomplished for selected content and configuration.  Content Migration is documented at the  SAS Help Center: SAS Viya: Content Migration from SAS Viya 4   Content in Folders   Most Viya content such as reports, SAS programs, jobs, analytical models, etc. are stored in the SAS Infrastructure Data Server and surfaced in the Viya folder tree.   In most cases, you can choose where in the folders to store your content. Being organized and having a well-defined folder structure and a good content naming convention is a great best practice and can help you when you want to save and restore content. Be aware that there are some types of content that are stored in specific locations. For example, Model Manager saves models in the users “My Folder” and some Visual Analytic content such as themes and data views are saved in the /Products/SAS Visual Analytics area of the folder tree.   Content stored in folders can be easily exported and imported using SAS Environment Manager and/or the transfer plug-in of the sas-viya command-line interface (CLI) The tools create SAS Viya packages. The capability to import and export content was previously restricted to Viya Administrators but was recently opened to all users. This change opens the tools up to allow users to export and import their own content. For details check out this blog post: Non Administrator Access to Content Migration in SAS Viya 4   Exporting   In the screenshot below is a folder containing sub-folders with a variety of content (flows, job, queries, reports, data plans, etc.)        Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   To export a folder and all of its contents to a SAS Viya package, open the Content page of SAS Environment Manager, select the folder, then right-click and select Export.       A SAS Viya Package file is saved in the Browsers download directory.   The sas-viya CLI can be used to export content from the command line. In this case, it is a multi-step process. The steps shown below in the code are:   1. Identify the URI (a unique identifier) of the folder 2. Export the folder using its URI 3. Identity the packageid of the package created. This step is shown programmatically below but the id is also output to the terminal window when you run the export step. 4. Download from the Infrastructure Data Server the package created by the export.   folderid=$(sas-viya --output json folders show --path /gelcontent/GELCorp/Sales | jq | jq -r '.["id"]') sas-viya --output text transfer export -u /folders/folders/$folderid --name SalesContent$folderid packageid=$(sas-viya --output json transfer list --name SalesContent$folderid | jq | jq -r '.items[]["id"]') sas-viya transfer download -f /tmp/viya4packages/SalesContent.json --id $packageid   The GEL pyviyatools are a set of command-line tools that call the SAS Viya REST API from python. The tools are available on the SAS GitHub site. The tools can be used to make direct calls to any rest-endpoint (like a CURL command) or to build additional tools that make multiple rest calls to provide more complex functionality. The GEL pyviyatools include several tools that can help with the process of saving and reloading configuration and content.   To export a folder, we can use one command.   exportfolder.py -f "/gelcontent/GELCorp/Sales/Reports" -d /tmp/viya4packages --filename SalesContent.json -q   In the example, we exported a subset of content (a folder and its content). What if you want to export the complete folder structure but you do not want to perform a full backup? The pyviyatools can also help with this. The following command will export all the folders in the folder tree and their sub-folders to a directory.   exportfoldertree.py -d /tmp/allfolders -q   The output directory will contain a Viya transfer package for each sub-folder of the SAS Content root     Importing   The same tools that were used for export can be used on the import side to restore your content. SAS Environment Manager import interface supports importing any SAS transfer package regardless of how it was created. Select Import in the UI and walk through the steps in the Wizard to import a package, during the import you will have the opportunity to remap to the same or different resources in the target environment.     With the sas-viya cli again it is a multi-step process to import a package. The steps:   Upload the package to the target environments Infrastructure Data Server Import the package.   packageid=$(sas-viya --output json transfer upload --file /tmp/viya4packages/SalesContent.json | jq | jq -r '.["id"]') sas-viya --output text transfer import --id $packageid   Pyviyatools again can simplify the process. Copy any packages you want to import to a directory and the tool will import all packages in the directory. For example, the command below will import all JSON packages stored in the /tmp/mypackages directory.   importpackages.py -d /tmp/mypackages/ -q The transfer service will deal with any object in Viya that has a URI Uniform Resource Identifiers(URI). There are some objects that do not exist in folders but do have URI’s, for example, authorization rules, custom groups, or job requests. These objects can be exported and imported using the transfer plug-in of the sas-viya cli and imported using the SAS Environment Manager Import interface. For more details you can check out these blog posts:   Uniform Resource Identifiers(URI) in SAS Viya Promotion of Viya resources that are not stored in folders Promoting Viya Job Flows   Specific Content Considerations   Certain types of content have additional considerations you should be aware of. These considerations are documented in content-specific migration guides. In addition, you can review these posts from my colleague @BethEbersole :   Moving SAS Model Studio Custom Pipelines to a New Environment: Not Everything Conveys Managing Models in Viya 3.3: A Few Highlights     Model Studio Promotions and Upgrades within SAS Viya in SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning: Advanced Topics Promotions and Upgrades within SAS Viya in SAS Visual Text Analytics: User’s Guide SAS Visual Text Analytics Promotions Considerations Specific to SAS Visual Text Analytics in SAS Visual Text Analytics: User’s Guide SAS Visual Forecasting Promotions and Upgrades within SAS Viya in Model Studio: SAS® Visual Forecasting Guide   Caslibs and Data    CAS libraries (caslibs) are: used to access data in the CAS server. do not reside in folders in Viya.   There are two aspects to caslibs. The: caslib metadata that contains the caslib definition, properties, authorization, etc., AND actual data itself.   Caslib metadata   The cas plugin of the sas-viya command-line interface can be used to export and import caslib definitions and authorization.   Output the definition of the salesdl caslib to a JSON file.   sas-viya --output json cas caslibs show-info --name "salesdl" --server=cas-shared-default > salescaslib.json Import the definition of the salesdl caslib from a JSON file.   sas-viya cas caslibs create path --source-file /tmp/salescaslib.json   In addition (you might have guessed :)), there are a few pyviyatools that can help to automate this process. exportcaslibs: will export all or a subset of caslibs to JSON files in a directory. It can optionally include the caslib authorization settings.   exportcaslibs.py -s cas-shared-default -d /tmp/mycaslibs -dc "gelcontent" -i -q         importcaslibs: pass in a directory the tool will create caslibs from the JSON caslib definitions in the directory. If authorization files exist it will also apply the caslib authorization settings.   Physical Data   Regarding physical data, a lot will depend on how the data is stored. Viya on Kubernetes makes it more complicated as the data may reside on persistent volumes (PV) in the cluster and not be as readily accessible as it was in previous versions of the software. For a good explanation of how persistent volumes work with Viya check out this post. There are options from within the SAS Viya Software, proc CAS, and proc CASTUTIL allow you to save and copy data as do proc DATASETS and proc COPY in base SAS.  Data can also be downloaded from SAS Environment Manager. Obviously, there is a practical limit to how much data can be downloaded from the browser. If your data is not too big then go to the Data pane of Environment Manager select the in-memory table, right-click and select Download table.        Depending on the permissions you have in Kubernetes you can use kubectl cp to copy data from the cluster to a local drive and vice-versa. Kubectl cp is a command that can copy files and directories to and from containers (like SCP in Linux). The basic syntax (below) specifies a source and target destination for the copy operation which refers to either a local or remote destination. The code below copies a SAS dataset from the Public CASLIB to a directory on the local drive.   kubectl -n myns cp sas-cas-server-default-controller:/cas/data/caslibs/public/hmeq.sas7bdat -c cas /tmp/downloads/hmeq.sas7bdat A couple of blog posts from my colleague Stephen Foerster focus on getting data into Viya on Kuberenetes, the concepts discussed also apply to getting data out.   Viya 4: Loading External Path-Based Data Viya 4: Loading External Path-Based Data, Part 2   It is possible that you have made changes to Viya configuration that you want to save. In that case, you can use the techniques discussed in this post: Saving and reloading Viya Configuration   Conclusion Focusing on the good news then, it is very possible to save your Viya content (and configuration) and reload it. You have options. I hope in this post I have helped you understand your options and pointed you to some resources that can help you with this process. Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

In SAS Viya, the default session encoding is UTF-8. UTF-8 is a good choice as it includes all of the characters that can be used to process data in multiple languages. In SAS 9.4 the default encoding was usually a legacy encoding that supported a single language, for example, LATIN /WLATIN for English or Cyrillic/Wcyrillic for Cyrillic based languages. This encoding difference can present issues for SAS programs that are migrated from SAS 9 to Viya. This is particularly true for SAS 9,4 environments in different or multiple languages. In this post, I will introduce a new application that is delivered with SAS 9 Content Assessment that can help identify and resolve issues that result from this change in the default encoding. The December 2021 release of Content Assessment included a new application, SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization.   Character Encoding   Before we look at the application let's consider internationalization and character encoding. i18n or internationalization refers to the process of preparing software so that it can support local languages and cultural settings. Character encoding is a big part of this preparation. Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers   The best definition of encoding I could find comes from TechTerms.com   "While we view text documents as lines of text, computers actually see them as binary data or a series of ones and zeros. Therefore, the characters within a text document must be represented by numeric codes. In order to accomplish this, the text is saved using one of several types of character encoding."   Encoding and SAS   With SAS Viya the default encoding for SAS sessions changed to UTF8. What is UTF8? UTF-8 is a Unicode encoding. Unicode is the universal character encoding standard that includes the characters in most of the world’s writing systems and the rules for mapping those characters to a number. UTF-8 is a multibyte encoding (MBCS) that represents all of the characters available in Unicode. This is different from the single-byte character set (SBCS) encodings used in SAS 9.4, which represent each character in a single byte.   The 128 characters that make up the ASCII character set are each represented as one byte in UTF-8. Therefore, when the ASCII characters are converted to UTF-8, the size of those characters does not change. All of the other characters available in UTF-8 require 2, 3, or 4 bytes in memory. This includes many characters that are represented with a single byte of memory in the SBCS character encodings.   The following example, from SAS Help Center: Internationalization Compatibility for SAS String Functions shows what can happen in your code, and how you can fix it when you switch from running the code in a SAS session that uses a SBCS to one that runs in UTF-8, which is MBCS.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   If your SAS session in SAS 9.4 used an SBCS encoding (which is likely) then the transition to UTF8 in Viya can result in this, and some other common problems in SAS programs that process data. That is where the new SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization Content Assessment application comes in. This application is built to help you identify these problems in your SAS code and ease the process of migrating the code to run on SAS Viya.   SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization   The SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization application discovers known internationalization issues in SAS programs. The application searches SAS programs for patterns that have been identified as not i18n-compatible in SAS Viya including:​   embedded strings​ concatenated text strings​ locale-sensitive SAS formats/informats​ SAS string functions​ SAS string macros​ column pointer   Most of these issues relate to cases where the software assumes that one character is always represented by one byte in memory as is the case in SBCS encoding. When this is not the case as in UTF8 code that manipulates strings or uses SAS formats can result in data truncation and unexpected results. For a detailed examination of the issues around encoding, I encourage you to check out this excellent paper SAS® and UTF-8: Ultimately the Finest. Your Data and Applications Will Thank You!   Running the Application   The application can be run using the same steps as other content assessment applications. Content Assessment is available for download from support.sas.com.   install and configure content assessment execute application published assessed content load data and reports to Viya view reports   In this post, I am going to skip the steps that install and configure Content Assessment. The details are available in the documentation.   To run the SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization you will use the i18nCodeCheck executable. This command will run the application against the base SAS code we have in the d:\workshop\gelcorp directory. The application will look for SAS programs in any sub-directory under the directory referenced in the --source-location parameter. The scan-tag will help identify the results. You should use a unique scan tag for each set of directories you process.   i18nCodeCheck.exe --scan-tag basecode --source-location "d:\\workshop\\gelcorp"   It's worth noting that the Code Check for Internationalization has an additional feature that is not common with other Content Assessment Applications. As the log notes, in addition to the Visual Analytics reports it outputs an HTML report on the file system.     The next step for content assessment applications is to publish the content. The publish step aggregates the data and makes it available for reporting.   publishAssessedContent.exe --datamart-type i18n     There are two final steps common to all Content Assessment applications that are required. First, load the data to the Public CAS Library. You can perform this step via the Environment Manager UI or, as shown below, using the cas plugin for the sas-viya command-line interface.     sas-viya.exe cas tables import sas7bdat --replace --force --source-file D:\\workshop\\SAS9ContentAssessment\\assessment\\datamart\\i18n\\i18n_results.sas7bdat   Second, import the relevant report to SAS Viya. You can perform this step via the SAS Environment Manager UI or, as shown below, using the transfer plugin for the sas-viya command-line interface.   sas-viya.exe --output json transfer upload -f D:\\workshop\\SAS9ContentAssessment\\assessment\\packages\\i18n\\SAS_9_Code_Check_for_I18N.json # using id output from the previous step sas-viya.exe --output text transfer import --id "23f35d48-758c-42b6-a906-751c3f0adb48"   View the SAS Code Check for Internationalization Report   With the application run, the resulting data loaded to CAS and the report imported we can check out the results. In SAS Drive open Public / SAS Content Assessment / Code Check / SAS 9 Code Check for Internationalization. The Overview page of the report summarizes the status of the code check for internationalization displaying the number of programs compatible with UTF-8 encoding and the number of programs with issues.     It can be useful to review the About This Report page before getting deeper into the results. This page helps to understand the issues flagged, their implications, and what you might change to prevent issues when the code runs in a UTF-8 encoded SAS session in Viya. Another great that helps in understanding the issues and provides suggestions for actions is this Confluence Page     The detailed findings for each SAS program scanned are on the Incompatible Internationalizations page. The table on the page has a line for each program that has problems identified. A program is flagged as incompatible if the code contains programming elements that have possible internationalization issues documented in the About this Report page. The table in the bottom left lists a count of the types of problems identified in the programs checked and can be used to subset the report.     For details on an individual report double-click on a SAS program in the table. In this case, we are looking at the detailed results for one SAS program.     Sometimes incompatibilities are identified that need to be reviewed. For example, the details for this report show that we have some embedded strings which may or may not be a problem. It also shows we have some string functions, specifically substr and scan. For the string functions, the recommendation is to change the code from the current functions that assume the size of a single character is always one byte the corresponding K string function that does not make assumptions about the size of a single character. Lastly, the report shows we have some locale-sensitive formats.   As mentioned earlier, the Code Check for Internationalization application also generates a basic HTML report. This report has a page for each program with issues. The benefit of this report is that it does not require a Viya environment in order to surface the results. The report is stored in the Content Assessment results folder.     Summary   The Code Check for Internationalization application attempts to find known internationalization issues in SAS programs. The application is available with the 2020.2.2 release of SAS Viya.  The Code Check for Internationalization application will be invaluable for checking SAS programs for any internationalization issues that may occur when they are migrated to SAS Viya and run under the default UTF-8 encoding.   Additional Resources SAS Downloads: SAS 9 Content Assessment 2021.2.3 SAS National Language Support Reference Guide SAS Content Assessment SAS® and UTF-8: Ultimately the Finest. Your Data and Applications Will Thank You! The SAS® Encoding Journey: A Byte at a Time     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

SAS Viya includes a set of command-line interfaces that Viya administrators will find extremely useful. The command-line interfaces(CLI)  allow administrators to perform numerous administrative tasks in batch as an alternative to using the SAS Environment Manager interface. In addition, calls to the CLI's can be chained together in scripts to automate more complex administration tasks. In this post, I will take a look at a few useful examples. (NOTE: this post is an update of the previous post on the Viya 3.x sas-admin CLI)   In Viya 3.x the command-line interface was sas-admin. In SAS Viya 4 the command-line interface:   is called sas-viya consolidates all existing Viya command-line interfaces in one location.   The sas-viya command-line interface will run on Linux, Windows, or OSX and is available for download from support.sas.com   The sas-viya CLI is the main interface, it acts as a wrapper for the provided plugins. The individual plug-ins operate as interfaces to administration functionality in Viya. The CLI's provide a simplified interface to the SAS Viya REST services, they abstract the functionality of the REST services allowing an administrator to enter commands on a command line and receive a response back from the system.   Installing To install the CLI you download it from support.sas.com. Once you have the executable you need to install any plug-ins that you want to use. Plug-ins are installed from a repository. To see what repository you are configured to use, run the command.   sas-viya plugins list-repos   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   This is the default SAS hosted repository.   If you navigate to the URL http://support.sas.com/repos/viyacli/ you can see information on the plug-ins available in the repository. You can check the status of your locally installed plug-ins using the following command.   sas-viya plugins list-repo-plugins     The command outputs all the plug-ins available in the repository and also compares them to the plugins installed locally. In the output of the command plug-ins are flagged with an indicator that reflects their status:   asterix( *) : plugin is installed locally and the version in the repository is the same as the version installed accent (^): plugin is installed locally and the version in the repository is more recent than the version installed no indicator the plugin is available in the repository but has not been installed locally.   Check out this article to see how to install all available plug-ins (it covers sas-admin but the details are the same for sas-viya).   Using With the plug-ins installed there are two preliminary steps required to use the command-line interface you need to:   create a profile:  authenticate to Viya   To create a default profile:   sas-viya profile set-endpoint "http://gelcorp.pdcesx*****.race.sas.com" sas-viya profile set-output json   You can also create named profiles to connect to different Viya Environments.     Profiles are stored in the user's home directory in a file <homedir>/.sas/config.json and contain the endpoint of the Viya environment to connect to and the output setting.     The output options range from text, which provides a simplified text output of the result to fulljson which provides the full JSON output that is returned by the REST calls that the CLI submits.   To authenticate:   sas-viya auth login --user sasadm --password ******** The authentication step creates a token in a file stored in the user's home directory which is valid for, by default, 10 hours.  The file location is <homedir>/.sas/credentials.json. If you don't want to hard-code the userid and password you can use the .authinfo file approach to store your credentials described here.   The syntax of a call to the sas-viya CLI is shown below. The CLI  requires a plugin and command, and potentially a sub-command, options, and arguments. The example shows a call to the identities plugin. This command will list all the users who are members of the SAS Administrators custom group.   In this execution of sas-viya:   the plug-in is identities there is a global option --output set so that the result is returned in basic text the command is list-members the command option --group-id specifies the group whose members you wish to list.     The built-in help of the CLI's is a very useful feature.   ./sas-viya --help   This command provides help on the commands and the plugins available, and the global options that may be used.     You can also display help on the specific plugins by adding the plugin name and then specifying --help.   ./sas-viya authorization --help     A simple example Let's look at an example of using the command-line interface to perform some common administrative tasks. In the example we will create:   a new folder that is the sub-folder of an existing folder secure the folder import some existing content create and secure a CAS Library Load data into memory   Many of the folders commands require the ID from the previous request. The id of the item is displayed when you create the items and also when you list them using the CLI. In the examples, we will use JQ to capture pars the JSON output of one command and pass the result on to a subsequent command.   Create a folder Create a new folder at the root of the folder tree.   sas-viya folders create --name gelcontent   Create a sub-folder The next step is to create a folder that is a sub-folder of the /gelcontent folder. The id of the parent folder and the name of the new folder is passed to the create command of the folders plugin.   sas-viya --output json folders create --description "Sales" --name "Sales" --parent-path /gelcontent     Set permissions on the folder Next using the folder plugin to retrieve the folder id from the previous step set authorization on the folder. In this call to the authorization plug-in, we grant full control to the group Sales on the new folder and its content.   folderid=$(sas-viya --output json folders show --path /gelcontent | jq -r '.["id"]') sas-viya --output json authorization create-rule grant --permissions read,create,update,delete,add,remove,secure --group Sales --object-uri /folders/folders/${folderid}/** --container-uri /folders/folders/${folderid}     In SAS Environment Manager check that the folder has been created and check the authorization settings. The authorization setting on the folder shows that a new rule has been created and applied to provide full access to Sales.   Import a content to the folder The transfer CLI allows us to import and export content from a Viya Environment. In this step we will   upload a transfer package that contains content import the package list the contents of the folder with the content   #upload the package to Viya and capture the packagedid packageid=$(sas-viya --output json transfer upload --file /tmp/viya4packages/gelcontent_sales_reports.json | jq | jq -r '.["id"]') echo ID of the uploaded package is $packageid #import the package using the id sas-viya  --output text transfer import --id $packageid     View the folders and their content.   sas-viya --output text folders list-members --path /gelcontent/Sales --recursive --tree       Create a CASLIB and set permissions The next task we might perform is to add a caslib, set authorization and load data. We can do that with the following calls to the CAS plugin.   sas-viya --output text cas caslibs create path --name salesdl --path /gelcontent/gelcorp/sales/data --server cas-shared-default sas-viya --output text cas caslibs add-control --server cas-shared-default --caslib salesdl --group Sales --grant ReadInfo sas-viya --output text cas caslibs add-control --server cas-shared-default --caslib salesdl --group Sales --grant Select sas-viya --output text cas caslibs add-control --server cas-shared-default --caslib salesdl --group Sales --grant LimitedPromote   Load data into memory Load all the tables in the caslibs path into memory.   sas-viya --output text cas tables load --table=* --server cas-shared-default --caslib salesdl   Conclusion The SAS Viya command-line interfaces provide an extremely useful set of functionality in support of automating common administration tasks. There is obviously much more that can be done with the CLI's than we can cover in this blog. For more information and details of the available interfaces please check out the following resources (some refer to sas-admin but the details remain the same):   SAS Viya Command Line Interface Documentation Keeping the SAS Administration Command-Line interfaces up-to-date Automating post-deployment Viya tasks with REST and the administration CLI Saving and reloading Viya Configuration YOUTUBE: SAS Viya Administration: Command-Line Interfaces     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Content Assessment is a collection of applications designed to help you understand various characteristics of your SAS 9.4 deployment. SAS Content Assessment is being updated every month to match the Viya development efforts in the area of migration from SAS 9.4 to Viya. Recent development has added new applications to Content Assessment which extend its capabilities beyond the assessment of a SAS 9.4 environment and begin to assist with the execution of migration to SAS Viya. In this post, I will look at these new applications     Content Assessment is available as a download from support.sas.com. The download contains the installation and usage documentation which is also available in the Migration section of the SAS Viya Administration guide.   The following resources provide more information on the "assessment" side Content Assessment:   Content Assessment YouTube Content Assessment Documentation Preparing for upgrade or modernization: understanding your deployment A First look at Migration from SAS  9.4 to Viya In this post, we will look at the "migration" applications which can be split into two categories, those that assist with export from SAS 9.4, and those that assist with import to Viya.   Export applications There is currently one application that helps with exporting from SAS 9.4. The createSASPackages application creates SAS packages (.spk files) for SAS objects that you intend to migrate from SAS 9 to SAS Viya.   Requirements to use createSASPackages. The SAS Content Assessment must be installed on the same machine as   SAS 9.4 Foundation SAS 9.4 Platform Object Framework The application currently supports Data Integration Studio jobs. Using the "SAS 9 Profile for SAS Data Integration Report" created by the ProfileContent application, you can create a CSV file of jobs that can then be input to the createSASPackages application.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.     The createSASPackages application creates SAS packages for each object in the CSV. The packages are output in the location set in the parameter ASSESSMENT_PACKAGES_OUTPUT_LOCATION set in the setenv.yaml file.   createSASPackages.exe --source-file "D:\\workshop\\94packages\\Jobs ready for migration or not.csv"   Each job that is referenced in the CSV file, and any dependent objects, are exported to a .spk file.     Import applications There are two import applications importEGProjects and importSASPackages.   importEGProjects imports SAS Enterprise Guide projects on the file system to SAS Viya 4. importSASPackages imports SAS packages containing SAS Enterprise Guide projects and SAS Data Integration Studio jobs to SAS Viya 4.   These applications are used in conjunction with the SAS Viya Command-Line interface(CLI). They are a little different than the rest of the Content Assessment applications in that they do not access the SAS 9.4 environment. Instead, they read files (.spk and .egp) from the file system and, using the transfer plug-in of the SAS Viya CLI to import the content of those files to SAS Viya.   Requirements to use the import applications:   installed on the same machine as the SAS Viya CLI (minimum release 1.7.11) the SAS Viya CLI must include at a minimum the 1.20.0 release of the transfer plug-in. can access the Viya environment can access the directory with the SAS Package files and/or Enterprise Guide projects.   These applications are really stand-alone applications delivered with the Content Assessment Utility they are installed in the migration sub-directory of the Content Assessment install directory. They can be used independently of any Content Assessment analysis (NOTE: To use the CSV import you need a CSV file in the format created by the Content Assessment reports).   Using the importEGProjects application there are two ways to specify which projects to import. You can use a CSV file downloaded from the Content Assessment Reports or you can reference the EG projects directly.   Use --source-location to specify the path to a directory containing SAS Enterprise Guide projects. You can optionally specify a base directory to store the EG projects (the default directory is "SAS Content> ConvertedEGProjects").   ./importEGProjects.exe --sas-viya-path "D:\\ViyaHome\\CLI\\sas-viya.exe" --source-location "D:\workshop\gelcorp\finance\projects"   Check out this article to see more details on using importEGProjects with the output of the Content Assessment reports. ImportPackages works in exactly the same way except the --source-location should point to a directory that includes SAS packages.   Summary Content Assessment now delivers additional applications that can assist with the execution phase of a migration.   createSASPackages application creates SAS packages (.spk files) for SAS objects that you intend to migrate from SAS 9 to SAS Viy importEGProjects imports SAS Enterprise Guide projects on the file system to SAS Viya 4. importSASPackages imports SAS packages containing SAS Enterprise Guide projects and SAS Data Integration Studio jobs to SAS Viya 4.   I encourage you to take a look at Content Assessment on a regular basis as new features are delivered every month (this post was originally based on 2021.1.5). You can see what has changed in the Version History section of the documentation.      Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more