Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn the similarities and differences between SAS 9 and SAS Viya administration.
Watch the webinar
You’ll see a comparison of SAS Viya versus SAS 9 in terms of:
User access.
Data access.
Server architecture.
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 would like to share a report created in SAS with an outside org. If I create a custom group, will they be able to view it/access?
Though the custom group itself does not exist in your authentication provider, custom groups are created from combinations of users or groups that DO exist in your authentication provider. So, the answer is, no, you will not be able to share a report created in SAS with members of a customer group that contains members not in your authentication provider.
This looks like a Windows specific environment. How would your presentation be different if we had a Linux environment?
The great thing about SAS Management Console and SAS Environment Manager is that the applications have the same look, feel and behavior regardless of the backend. There may be some minor differences, like where the menu items are located, but overall, the experience is the same. The backends would be a little different and what I did not get an opportunity to mention is that each offering, SAS 9, and SAS Viya, has command line access. You can perform the same administration task or similar administration tasks that I showed you here using the command line tool available in each offering. Then of course, it is going to be based on the command lines for your operating system, Linux, or DOS.
How often do you recommend doing hot fixes on both 9.4 and Viya?
Best answer: it depends. It is really going to be based on the type of administrator you are and how important that hot fix is. Sometimes our security hot fixes could fix something urgent like a security hole, so I recommend installing those as they come out. SAS has a great Community page now. If you are not a part of it, you can subscribe to the SAS Hot Fix Announcements and that will alert you to hot fixes. The good thing about SAS is that we are flexible when it comes to hot fixes, so applying them depends on your environment. So, if it is broken, fix it. But, beyond that, I would look at the maintenance releases. Or if you do not want to wait for the maintenance releases, I would also look at your overall system structure. How often do you update your system? What are your maintenance periods for your overall system? Then possibly incorporate the hotfixes during those times. There is no set schedule that SAS has as far as, “you have to apply the hot fixes at this certain time.” We do release critical hotfixes and when we release critical hotfixes, I would do those as soon as possible.
Are we getting 9.4 depot through GitHub instead of a download manager through SAS?
I have not heard of that yet. A lot of deployments are moving that way, but I have not heard of SAS 9 integrating with such open-source tools yet.
When creating new users, you first add the users to a group and assign security/permissions, correct? Yes, the order is to create a metadata identity for the individual user, add that user to a group, and then add that group to the metadata object in question. That is what you would do in SAS 9. In SAS Viya users and groups are pulled from your authentication mechanism, so there is not the need to create new users. However, once the users have been added to SAS Viya, then you would add the users to the content, such as a folder, and secure.
Could we migrate SAS data from SAS 9.4 to SAS Viya 4?
The answer is yes. Though the migration path could depend, but mostly it is s about making the data available, so definitely SAS data in SAS 9 to SAS data in SAS Viya is very much doable. You may have a few tweaks if it is a third-party data source, but the one important thing is that content / data / code running in SAS 9 today, by all intents and purposes and in the best theories, should run effectively today in SAS Viya with minimal changes.
Are there filters/mechanisms available to selectively pull users & groups from LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) in Viya or pull everyone?
It is highly recommended that you use filters in your LDAP or authentication provider to only pull the users and groups you want into SAS Viya. In my experience, a SAS group in the authentication provider is created, and the desired users and groups are added to the SAS group as needed.
Can you pull users in with LDAP or Active Directory in 9.4 also or just manually adding?
SAS 9 provides bulk load macros that connect to LDAP, /etc/password and other authentication mechanisms to import and synchronize users. The macros are used initially to load users into SAS 9, and then to synchronize users between your authentication mechanism and SAS.
Can you show how to remove a user from a data, library, group from view authorization? I never can delete.
When viewing the authorization for SAS Viya, there is a space next to the principle. Click that space and the delete icon becomes available. You can then remove the principle.
Is it best to create CAS (Cloud Analytic Server) Lib when sorting out who has access to what reports?
I advise before you ever point and click in a SAS application, that you have a plan. This especially is the case for concepts like security and giving access to content.
Can you advise if the current version of SAS 9.4 in existing HSBC environment supports and provides access to “Table Editor tagset” for creating PivotTable using SAS?
Though I cannot speak to the HSBC environment specifically, SAS 9 does support and provide access to the “Tableeditor tagset”. The Tableeditor tagset must be downloaded. Please reach out to Chevell.Parker@sas.com if you have more questions. (Email given with his permission)
Is SAS Viya a separate SAS license?
SAS 9 and SAS Viya each require their own license. The offerings do not share licenses.
Can you please show what My SAS is about and its interface, how to signup maybe?
When you create a SAS profile, you will get a My SAS page. My SAS allows you to manage your SAS software, renew your SAS license, follow support tracks, and get access to SAS Cloud.
Does anything change in programming syntaxes and semantics between SAS 9 and SAS Viya, apart from SAS Viya architecture and processing being different from SAS 9?
SAS 9 programs can run unmodified within SAS Viya.
Does SAS plan to release SAS 9.4 M8?
SAS 9.4M7 shipped August 2020. I believe SAS will release SAS 9.4 M8, but I do not know the timeframe.
SAS 9 has some client software which are fat clients like SAS DI (Data Integration) studio, SAS EG (Enterprise Guide), SAS Information Map, etc . As I can understand, SAS Viya will only have thin clients like SAS Studio as a replacement. What is SAS going to provide in SAS Viya as a replacement for SAS Information Studio because SAS solutions like SAS CI (Customer Intelligence) 360 are fully dependent on Imap at the moment. Does SAS Viya have an alternative?
SAS Information Maps are metadata objects and SAS Viya does not have metadata. I do not have an exact answer as far as a replacement for SAS Information Studio, but I do know SAS is working diligently to incorporate solutions into SAS Viya.
How does SAS 9.4 Grid differ from SAS Viya?
SAS 9 Grid and Viya are integrated in many ways as noted in this SAS Global Forum paper (https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2020/4577-2020.pdf). However, one of the most significant differences is how SAS 9 Grid and SAS Viya handle distributed processing. SAS Viya leverages the CAS server, and SAS 9 Grid uses the SAS Grid Manager. The following two articles go into more detail in answering this question:
https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2020/4577-2020.pdf
https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/SAS-Grid-Manager-and-SAS-Viya-Comparing-Capabilities/ta-p/665896
How does SAS Viya boost processing power?
SAS Viya uses the CAS server. The CAS server performs better because it can retain data from one action to the next action rather than having to reload the same data from disk for each action.
Does SAS have an online certification program? Cost?
Yes, we have an online certification program. Please visit our site to learn more.
No metadata in Viya? Maybe not, but you can get a lot of info from the CLI (Command Line Interfaces) interfaces, which are great.
You are correct there is no metadata in SAS Viya. There is no monolithic process like the metadata server. However, SAS Viya does have infrastructure servers that contain information needed by the system. The SAS Configuration Server and the SAS Infrastructure Data Server handle this functionality.
How can I install SAS Management console SAS admin on my desktop?
Steps provided by Stefan Giuros in the SAS Administration and Deployment Communities page...
Make the SAS depot accessible to your workstation, either by copying it or by using a shared folder.
As a local administrator on the workstation, execute, from SAS depot directory, setup.exe.
Choose the language or accept English by default.
In the "Select Deployment Task" window, choose "Install SAS Software" and click Next.
Note: at this point, if (a) you already have some SAS software already deployed on the workstation and (b) the SAS version of the depot is newer than the SAS version deployed, then SAS Deployment Wizard will ask you to update the existing SAS software deployed. You should allow updating and, when this process finishes, the SAS Deployment Wizard will close. You should launch it again at shown at point 2 above.
In the "Select Deployment Type" window, choose "Install SAS Foundation and Related Software" and click Next.
In the "Select Products to Install" window, do the following:
In "Products to Install" dropbox select "Clients Only"
Be sure that "SAS Management Console" checkbox is selected. You may want to un-check clients you do not need.
Something like:
Click Next
In "Specify SAS Installation Data File" window, specify the SID file (it is OK to have the Linux SID) or leave the default selection.
In the "Select Language Support" window, select languages you need.
Wait for "Checking System" windows to complete.
Perform deployment.
Does the SAS identity management/Open LDAP support nested groups in AD (Active Directory)? Are there any limitations?
SAS supports nested groups without any limitations.
What about roles in SAS Viya?
SAS Viya supports roles, but not in the same manner as SAS 9. Roles and capabilities in SAS 9 have been replaced by rules and custom groups. In SAS Viya, you control access to functionality through membership in custom groups and assigning principals (users and groups) to rules.
If you create a custom group, does it get written to the LDAP?
No, SAS Viya only pulls from LDAP. The identities service does not push.
How will authentication happen in SAS Viya when you set up configuration with Database Domain in Console Management without LDAP Authentication for database access? Does it require OS (Operating System) user to create database authentication?
SAS Viya is going to attempt to use the credentials available. If the owner of the process is the CAS account, then that account needs database access. If the owner of the process is the user, then that account needs database access. Domains are managed in the interface and users have the ability to manage their own accounts.
What is the major difference between SAS 9 vs SAS Viya while accessing tables?
The major difference is that SAS Viya loads the data into memory for fast access. SAS 9 accesses the data on disk, unless using a LASR server.
Select data, if DB as a data source, then DB grants supersede Viya perm? Example, DB grants.
SAS Viya security does not override database security. If the database grants permission and SAS Viya authorization denies permission, the user will not be able to access the database through visual interfaces. However, the user could still access the database through SAS programming interfaces.
Other than LDAP accounts, can we add Linux external accounts like SAS and CAS to give authorization to a folder?
The CAS account is typically added to LDAP because that is the default account that the processing server runs under when using visual interfaces in SAS Viya. The SAS account is not typically added, but if adding that account meets your security requirements, then feel free to. The CAS account is added to some data sources in SAS Viya as needed, but it is not a customary practice to add the CAS account to folder authorization. However, if this also meets your security requirements, feel free to.
How do you create authorization control templates (act's) in SAS Viya?
SAS Viya does not support Access Control Templates.
How do I manage the data if the data is in MongoDB?
SAS has a SAS/ACCESS for MongoDB that includes SAS Data Connector to MongoDB. The data connector enables you to transfer large amounts of data between MongoDB and the CAS server for parallel processing.
What percentage of the installs are SAS 9.4 and what percentage is SAS Viya?
Unfortunately, I do not have the statistics on the percentages of installations. SAS 9 has had and continues to have a great history. SAS 9 has also been around for longer. I am sure the number of sites with SAS 9 outnumber the number of sites with SAS Viya. However, I would think that the number of sites with new installations would favor SAS Viya. That is just a guess, and as I mentioned, I do not have the exact numbers.
Can I put the data into the data lake in a Parquet format?
For the answer to this question, I have to again turn to our SAS Communities page. Please view the link below. It leads to a page that discusses SAS Viya and Parquet Data Files.
https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/SAS-Viya-and-Parquet-Data-Files/ta-p/765869
How can data loading be automated?
You can create jobs in SAS Viya and schedule those jobs to load and unload data.
Is there any tool to move/migrate easily from SAS 9 to SAS Viya? In SAS 9 we have import /export tool?
SAS Viya can take advantage of the import/export process as well. You can import SAS 9 packages into SAS Viya with proper mapping. However, if you are considering moving from SAS 9 to SAS Viya, I suggest you use the SAS 9 Content Assessment. The SAS 9 Content Assessment is a collection of applications designed to help you understand the various characteristics of your SAS 9 deployment.
You can download the SAS 9 Content Assessment using the following link:
https://support.sas.com/downloads/package.htm?pid=2465
Will there be any more SAS versions post SAS 9.4 or now only Viya will be used in the future?
The current version of SAS 9 is SAS 9.4M7. There is going to be a SAS 9.4M8 release.
What are the advantages of PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) in SAS Viya?
I do not know if this is considered an advantage but configuring PAM for your CAS server enables you to control how SAS Viya performs authentication.
If you have created SAS webapps using a stored process server - can you still use them - or what is the alternate to using them?
SAS Viya does not support web applications created using a SAS Stored Process.
How does SAS Viya handle SAS stored processes? Does SAS Viya have SAS stored processes?
SAS Viya does not support SAS Stored processes as you know them in SAS 9. SAS Viya supports Jobs, and the Job functionality is similar to the SAS 9 Stored Process.
Does SAS Viya require a public cloud like Azure or AWS (Amazon Web Services) because banking clients are still hesitant to move to the cloud? Does SAS Viya have an option for on-prem machines?
Currently SAS does not offer an on-premise option for SAS Viya. An option is expected later in 2021. I do not have a date for that option.
Can we have the GitHub reference please? (For SAS material that you mentioned during the webinar)
The main SAS Software GitHub repository is found at https://github.com/sassoftware/
If you enter “iac” in the search field, you will get to the infrastructure as code projects for the different providers.
I am a SAS 9 user. I would like to know more about the difference from the user environment / interface point of view between SAS 9 and SAS Viya.
The following document is a great resource to understand the differences between SAS Viya and SAS 9.
https://support.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/technical-papers/sas9-4-sas-viya-functional-comparison.pdf
We heard SAS Viya is good for analytics purposes, but you cannot use it as an ETL tool, is that true? If not, how effective will it be if we use it as an ETL tool?
SAS provides SAS Data Studio and programming interfaces for data quality operations.
SAS 9 provides automated ways to maintain users & groups with SAS code (cfr. sample program "importad.sas") you can run to synchronize with your authentication provider (which Viya also does, directly as I have understood), but also macros to report security, batch utilities to create (sas-make-act) & apply ACT's (sas-set-metadata-access), folders (sas-make-folder), libraries and so on with metadata-functions and alike. Is this possible in Viya too and how do you accomplish this? Are there similar "batch utilities", a one-to-one mapping perhaps?
SAS offers the SAS Viya command-line interface (CLI) that allows you to enter commands on a command line and receive responses from the system. You can set security (though ACTs (Access Control Templates) are not supported in SAS Viya), add content, and manage resources.
The SAS Viya CLI can be downloaded here https://support.sas.com/downloads/package.htm?pid=2512
Does SAS offer free courses for 9.4?
You can find information about our free training here.
Can those two free courses (links to them) get posted in the resources widget?
SAS Platform Administration: Getting Started
The second class should be released in the next few weeks.
Does the EG application work with SAS Viya?
Yes, if configured properly you can connect to SAS Viya and establish a CAS server session using SAS Enterprise Guide.
We have a highly customized and automated SAS 9 environment, based on the batch utilities to create folders, security groups, libraries, etc. Everything gets generated and applied in an automated way. Since we have spent a lot of time developing the setup, is there some kind of conversion utility from SAS 9 to Viya for those specifics?
I recommend the SAS 9 Content Assessment to evaluate the readiness of your environment to move from SAS 9 to SAS Viya.
The SAS 9 Content Assessment can be downloaded here: https://support.sas.com/downloads/package.htm?pid=2465
Recommended Resources
SAS Viya Getting Started (free e-course)
SAS Viya Administration Fast Track (3.5 course)
SAS Viya Administration (based on Viya 2020.1.0)
SAS® 9.4 and SAS® Viya® Functional Comparison
Migrating from SAS® 9.4 to SAS® Viya® 3.5
SAS Users Group for Administrators & Architects
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