has explained the difference in how it works. I 'd like to chip in my 2 cents on when and why you choose which. 1. Libname approach (Oracle/ODBC engine): small data, less joins, you get to see the familiar hierarchy SAS library structure. 2. Pass-thru: Big data, lots of joins. you get to enjoy high performance. In option 1, data will be brought into SAS for processing. In option 2, data will be preprocessed inside database, which is not only saving the I/O, but also inheritably higher efficient comparing to SAS for its optimized index system, esp. when doing Cartesian product joins. SAS is not a database software, so it is NOT good at doing certain things, and SAS knows it, this is why when SAS promotes its "High Performance Analytics", there is item called " in-database solution". Personally I used a lot more pass-thru than libname. Haikuo
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