1. SAS® Intelligence Platform Overview
1. SAS® Intelligence Platform Overview
3 Intelligence
®
Platform
Overview
SAS® Documentation
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Contents
Recommended Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
v
Recommended Reading
Chapter 1
Value of the SAS Intelligence
Platform
Components Overview
The SAS Intelligence Platform includes components in the following categories:
Data Management
The data management components enable you to consolidate and manage enterprise
data from a variety of source systems, applications, and technologies. Components
are provided to help you cleanse, migrate, synchronize, replicate, and promote your
data. In addition, SAS offers data storage options that are optimized for analytical
processing, enabling you to quickly analyze and report on large volumes of data.
Metadata for all of your intelligence resources is stored centrally and controlled
through a single management interface.
Components of the SAS Intelligence Platform 3
Business Intelligence
The business intelligence components enable users with various needs and skill
levels to create, produce, and share their own reports and analyses. Through easy-to-
use interfaces, users can obtain their own answers to business questions. Meanwhile,
the information technology staff retains control over the quality and consistency of
the data.
Analytics
SAS offers the richest and widest portfolio of analytic products in the software
industry. The portfolio includes products for predictive and descriptive modeling,
data mining, text analytics, forecasting, optimization, simulation, data visualization,
model management, and experimental design. You can use any combination of these
tools with the SAS Intelligence Platform to add extraordinary precision and insight
to your reports and analyses.
The following sections describe in more detail the data management, business
intelligence, and analytics components, as well as key supporting components.
Data Management
The software tools in the data management category enable you to consolidate and
manage enterprise data from a variety of source systems, applications, and technologies.
SAS provides access engines and interfaces to a wide variety of data sources, including
the following:
• delimited files, SAS data sets, and relational database management system (RDMS)
tables
• application data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship
management (CRM) systems
• message queuing platforms
• Web services
• unstructured and semi-structured data
Data storage options include simple relational databases, a threaded multidimensional
database that supports online analytical processing (OLAP), and relational storage with a
threaded multiple input/output (I/O) subsystem for intensive use by focused applications.
Each of the data management solutions is described briefly in the following sections.
centralized way. The DataFlux Data Management Platform combines data quality, data
integration, and master data management under a unified user interface.
A simplified ETL process enables you to build consistent OLAP cubes from
disparate systems. A threaded query engine and parallel storage enable data to be
spread across multiple-disk systems. Support is provided for multidimensional
(MOLAP) and hybrid (HOLAP) data stores, as well as for open industry standards.
Parallel Storage: SAS Scalable Performance Data Engine and SAS Scalable
Performance Data Server
The SAS SPD Engine and SAS SPD Server provide a high-speed data storage
alternative for processing very large SAS data sets. They read and write tables that
contain millions of observations, including tables that exceed the 2-GB size limit
imposed by some operating systems. In addition, they provide the rapid data access
that is needed to support intensive processing by SAS analytic software and
procedures.
These facilities work by organizing data into a streamlined file format and then using
threads to read blocks of data very rapidly and in parallel. The software tasks are
performed in conjunction with an operating system that enables threads to execute on
any of the CPUs that are available on a machine.
The SAS SPD Engine, which is included with Base SAS software, is a single-user
data storage solution. The SAS SPD Server, which is available as a separate product,
is a multi-user solution that includes a comprehensive security infrastructure, backup
and restore utilities, and sophisticated administrative and tuning options.
Business Intelligence
The software tools in the business intelligence category address two main functional
areas: information design, and self-service reporting and analysis.
The information design tools enable business analysts and information architects to
organize data in ways that are meaningful to business users, while shielding the end
users from the complexities of underlying data structures. These tools include the
following products:
• SAS Information Map Studio enables analysts and information architects to create
and manage information maps that contain business metadata about your data.
• SAS OLAP Cube Studio enables information architects to create cube definitions
that organize summary data along multiple business dimensions.
The self-service reporting and analysis tools enable business users to query, view, and
explore centrally stored information. Users can create their own reports, graphs, and
analyses in the desired format and level of detail. In addition, they can find, view, and
share previously created reports and analyses. The tools feature intuitive interfaces that
enable business users to perform these tasks with minimal training and without the
involvement of information technology staff.
The self-service reporting and analysis tools include the following products:
• SAS Web Report Studio is a Web-based query and reporting tool that enables users
at any skill level to create, view, and organize reports.
• SAS Information Delivery Portal provides a Web-based, personalized workplace to
help decision makers easily find the information that they need.
• SAS BI Portlets includes portlets, such as the SAS Stored Process Portlet and the
SAS Report Portlet, that add value to the SAS Information Delivery Portal.
• SAS BI Dashboard enables SAS Information Delivery Portal users to create,
maintain, and view dashboards to monitor key performance indicators that convey
how well an organization is performing.
6 Chapter 1 • Value of the SAS Intelligence Platform
• SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office enables users to access SAS functionality from
within Microsoft Office products.
• SAS Enterprise Guide is a project-oriented Windows application that enables users
to create processes that include complex computations, business logic, and
algorithms.
As users create information maps, cubes, report definitions, portal content definitions,
and stored processes, information about them is stored in the SAS Metadata Repository.
Client applications and users can access these information assets on a need-to-know
basis. Access is controlled through multilayered security that is enforced through the
metadata.
For a description of each of the business intelligence tools, see “Clients in the SAS
Intelligence Platform” on page 37 .
Analytics
SAS offers the richest and widest portfolio of analytic products in the software industry.
The portfolio includes products for predictive and descriptive modeling, data mining,
text analytics, forecasting, optimization, simulation, and experimental design. You can
use any combination of these tools with the SAS Intelligence Platform to add precision
and insight to your reports and analyses.
SAS software provides the following types of analytical capabilities:
• predictive analytics and data mining, to build descriptive and predictive models and
deploy the results throughout the enterprise
• text analytics, to maximize the value of unstructured data assets
• dynamic data visualization, to enhance the effectiveness of analytics
• forecasting, to analyze and predict outcomes based on historical patterns
• model management, to streamline the process of creating, managing, and deploying
analytic models
• operations research, to apply techniques such as optimization, scheduling, and
simulation to achieve the best result
• quality improvement, to identify, monitor, and measure quality processes over time
• statistical data analysis, to drive fact-based decisions
The following are examples of analytic products:
• SAS Enterprise Miner enables analysts to create and manage data mining process
flows. These flows include steps to examine, transform, and process data to create
models that predict complex behaviors of economic interest. The SAS Intelligence
Platform enables SAS Enterprise Miner users to centrally store and share the
metadata for models and projects. In addition, SAS Data Integration Studio provides
the ability to schedule data mining jobs.
• SAS Forecast Server enables organizations to plan more effectively for the future by
generating large quantities of high-quality forecasts quickly and automatically. This
solution includes the SAS High-Performance Forecasting engine, which selects the
time series models, business drivers, and events that best explain your historical data,
optimizes all model parameters, and generates high-quality forecasts. SAS Forecast
Studio provides a graphical interface to these high-performance forecasting
procedures.
Strategic Benefits of the SAS Intelligence Platform 7
• SAS Model Manager supports the deployment of analytical models into your
operational environments. It enables registration, modification, tracking, scoring, and
reporting on analytical models that have been developed for BI and operational
applications.
• JMP is interactive, exploratory data analysis and modeling software for the desktop.
JMP makes data analysis—and the resulting discoveries—visual and helps to
communicate those discoveries to others. JMP presents results both graphically and
numerically. By linking graphs to each other and to the data, JMP makes it easier to
see the trends, outliers, and other patterns that are hidden in your data.
Supporting Components
Scheduling in SAS
Platform Suite for SAS is an optional product that provides enterprise-level scheduling
capabilities in a single-server environment. Platform Suite for SAS is also included as
part of the SAS Grid Manager product to enable distributed enterprise scheduling,
workload balancing, and parallelized workload balancing. The components of Platform
Suite for SAS include Process Manager, Load Sharing Facility (LSF), and Grid
Management Services.
As an alternative, operating system services can be used to provide a basic level of
scheduling for SAS jobs, and SAS in-process scheduling enables you to schedule jobs
from certain Web-based SAS applications.
You can build data warehouses, perform data mining, enable users to query data and
produce reports from a Web browser, and give users easy access to SAS processes that
perform robust analytics.
The SAS Intelligence Platform provides all of this functionality in one centrally
managed suite of products that are designed to work together seamlessly. This
integration reduces the administration, management, and deployment costs that would be
associated with providing multiple technologies to meet the needs of different users.
Chapter 2
Architecture of the SAS
Intelligence Platform
Architecture Overview
The SAS Intelligence Platform architecture is designed to efficiently access large
amounts of data, while simultaneously providing timely intelligence to a large number of
users. The platform uses an n-tier architecture that enables you to distribute functionality
across computer resources, so that each type of work is performed by the resources that
are best suited to the job.
You can easily scale the architecture to meet the demands of your workload. For a large
company, the tiers can be installed across a multitude of machines with different
operating systems. For prototyping, demonstrations, or very small enterprises, all of the
tiers can be installed on a single machine.
The architecture consists of the following four tiers:
Data sources
Data sources store your enterprise data. All of your existing data assets can be used,
whether your data is stored in third-party database management systems, SAS tables,
or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system tables.
SAS servers
SAS servers perform SAS processing on your enterprise data. Several types of SAS
servers are available to handle different workload types and processing intensities.
10 Chapter 2 • Architecture of the SAS Intelligence Platform
The software distributes processing loads among server resources so that multiple
client requests for information can be met without delay.
Middle tier
The middle tier enables users to access intelligence data and functionality via a Web
browser. This tier provides Web-based interfaces for report creation and information
distribution, while passing analysis and processing requests to the SAS servers.
Clients
The client tier provides users with desktop access to intelligence data and
functionality through easy-to-use interfaces. For most information consumers,
reporting and analysis tasks can be performed with just a Web browser. For more
advanced design and analysis tasks, SAS client software is installed on users'
desktops.
Note: The four tiers listed above represent categories of software that perform similar
types of computing tasks and require similar types of resources. The tiers do not
necessarily represent separate computers or groups of computers.
The following diagram shows how the tiers interact, and the sections that follow
describe each tier in more detail.
Data Sources
The SAS Intelligence Platform includes the following options for data storage:
• SAS data sets, which are analogous to relational database tables.
• SAS SPD Engine tables, which can be read or written by multiple threads.
• SAS SPD Server, which is available as a separate product.
• SAS OLAP cubes.
SAS Servers 11
• The SAS Framework Data Server, which is the default location for middle-tier data
such as alerts, comments, and workflows, as well as data for the SAS Content Server
and SAS Service Parts Optimization. The server is provided as an alternative to
using a third-party DBMS. (The server cannot be used as a general-purpose data
store.)
In addition, SAS provides products that enable you to access data in your existing third-
party data stores and ERP systems. The SAS/ACCESS interfaces provide direct access
to data stores such as the following:
• Oracle
• DB2
• Teradata
• ODBC
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
• Sybase
For a complete list of supported data stores, go to http://support.sas.com/
software/products/access/.
The following SAS Data Surveyor products provide direct access to ERP systems:
• SAS Data Surveyor for SAP Plug-in for SAS Data Integration Studio enables you to
consolidate and manage enterprise data from various SAP R/3 data sources.
• SAS Data Surveyor for Clickstream Data is a plug-in to SAS Data Integration
Studio. This plug-in enables you to create jobs that extract and transform clickstream
data from Web logs, and then load the resulting data into a SAS table. Other
applications, such as SAS Web Analytics, can then take the refined clickstream data
and analyze it.
• SAS has partnered with Composite Software to provide customers with access to
ERP and customer relationship management (CRM) data. SAS data surveyors for
Oracle Applications, Salesforce.com, and Siebel are available through this
partnership.
For more information about data sources, see “Data in the SAS Intelligence Platform” on
page 15 .
SAS Servers
applications when SAS is executed on a server. Each server uses a different set of IOM
interfaces and has a different purpose.
The principal servers in the SAS Intelligence Platform include the SAS Metadata Server,
the SAS OLAP Server, the SAS Workspace Server, the SAS Pooled Workspace Server,
the SAS Stored Process Server, and the SAS Framework Data Server. The SAS object
spawner process runs on server machines and handles requests for SAS Workspace
Servers, SAS Pooled Workspace Servers, and SAS Stored Process Servers.
Middle Tier
The middle tier of the SAS Intelligence Platform provides an environment in which the
business intelligence Web applications, such as SAS Web Report Studio and the SAS
Information Delivery Portal, can execute. These products run in a Web application
server and communicate with the user by sending data to and receiving data from the
user's Web browser. The middle tier applications rely on servers on the SAS server tier
to perform SAS processing, including data query and analysis.
The middle tier includes the following third-party software and SAS software elements:
• a Web application server
• the Java Development Kit (JDK)
• SAS Web applications, which can include SAS Web Report Studio, the SAS
Information Delivery Portal, SAS BI Portlets, the SAS BI Dashboard, SAS Help
Viewer for the Web, and other SAS products and solutions
• the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform, which includes the SAS Content Server and
other infrastructure applications and services
• a Java remote method invocation (RMI) server, which enables access to SAS
Foundation Services and associated extension services
14 Chapter 2 • Architecture of the SAS Intelligence Platform
For more information about the middle tier, see “Middle-Tier Components of the SAS
Intelligence Platform” on page 31.
Clients
The clients in the SAS Intelligence Platform provide Web-based and desktop user
interfaces to content and applications. SAS clients provide access to content, appropriate
query and reporting interfaces, and business intelligence functionality for all of the
information consumers in your enterprise, from the CEO to business analysts to
customer service agents.
The following clients run on Windows desktops. Some of these clients are native
Windows applications and others are Java applications.
• SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office
• SAS Data Integration Studio
• SAS Enterprise Guide
• SAS Enterprise Miner
• SAS Forecast Studio
• SAS Information Map Studio
• JMP (also available on Macintosh and Linux)
• SAS Management Console
• SAS Model Manager
• SAS OLAP Cube Studio
• SAS Workflow Studio
SAS Management Console is supported on all platforms except z/OS.
The following products require only a Web browser to be installed on each client
machine, with the addition of Adobe Flash Player for SAS BI Dashboard:
• SAS Information Delivery Portal
• SAS BI Dashboard
• SAS Web Report Studio
• SAS Help Viewer for the Web
For more information about the clients, see “Clients in the SAS Intelligence Platform”
on page 37.
15
Chapter 3
Data in the SAS Intelligence
Platform
• Netezza
• Oracle
• Teradata
Parallel Storage
disk drives, driven by one or more controllers per CPU. The SAS SPD Engine running
on an SMP machine provides the capability to read and deliver much more data to an
application in a given elapsed time.
For more information, see the SAS SPD Server documentation, which is available at
http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/spds/.
• the data sources (for example, SAS tables) that are contained in a library
• the columns that are contained in a data source
A variety of methods are available to populate the metadata repository with these
objects, including the following:
• The data source design applications, SAS Data Integration Studio and SAS OLAP
Cube Studio, automate the creation of all of the necessary metadata about your data
sources. As you use these products to define warehouses, data marts, and cubes, the
appropriate metadata objects are automatically created and stored in the metadata
repository.
• You can use the following features of SAS Management Console to define data
source objects:
• The New Server Wizard enables you to easily define the metadata for your
database servers and SAS Application Servers.
• The Data Library Manager enables you to define database schemas for a wide
variety of schema types. You can also use this feature to define libraries if you
are not using SAS Data Integration Studio to define them.
• The Register Tables feature enables you to import table definitions from external
sources if you are not using SAS Data Integration Studio to create them.
• On the SAS Folders tab, you can set permissions that secure access to metadata
folders and objects. Because all SAS Intelligence Platform applications use the
metadata server when accessing resources, permissions that are enforced by the
metadata server provide an effective level of protection. These permissions
supplement protections from the host environment and other systems. Therefore,
a user's ability to perform a particular action is determined not only by metadata-
based access controls but also by external authorization mechanisms such as
operating system permissions and database controls.
• You can use the metadata LIBNAME engine to enforce data-related Read, Write,
Create, and Delete access controls that have been defined in metadata.
After your data sources have been defined in metadata, you can use SAS Information
Map Studio to create SAS Information Maps, which are business metadata about your
data. Information maps enable you to surface your data in business terms that typical
business users understand, while storing key information that is needed to build
appropriate queries.
For detailed information about administering data sources, see the SAS Intelligence
Platform: Data Administration Guide.
20 Chapter 3 • Data in the SAS Intelligence Platform
21
Chapter 4
Servers in the SAS Intelligence
Platform
A program called the SAS object spawner runs on a workspace server's host
machine. The spawner listens for incoming client requests and launches server
instances as needed.
• SAS Pooled Workspace Servers, which are configured to use server-side pooling. In
this configuration, the SAS object spawner maintains a collection of workspace
server processes that are available for clients. This server configuration is intended
for use by query and reporting tools such as SAS Information Map Studio, SAS Web
Report Studio, and the SAS Information Delivery Portal.
• SAS Stored Process Servers, which fulfill client requests to execute SAS Stored
Processes. Stored processes are SAS programs that are stored on a server and can be
executed as required by requesting applications. By default, three load balanced SAS
Stored Process Servers are configured.
The SAS object spawner runs on a stored process server's host machine, listens for
incoming client requests, and launches server instances as needed.
• SAS OLAP Servers, which provide access to cubes. Cubes are logical sets of data
that are organized and structured in a hierarchical multidimensional arrangement.
Cubes are queried by using the multidimensional expression (MDX) language.
• the SAS Framework Data Server, which is the default location for middle-tier data
such as alerts, comments, and workflows, as well as data for the SAS Content Server
and SAS Service Parts Optimization. The server is provided as an alternative to
using a third-party DBMS. (The server cannot be used as a general-purpose data
store.)
• SAS/CONNECT servers, which provide computing resources on remote machines
where SAS Integration Technologies is not installed.
• batch servers, which enable you to execute code in batch mode. There are three types
of batch servers: DATA step batch servers, Java batch servers, and generic batch
servers. The DATA step server enables you to run SAS DATA steps and procedures
in batch mode. The Java server enables you to schedule the execution of Java code,
such as the code that creates a SAS Marketing Automation marketing campaign. The
generic server supports the execution of any other type of code.
• the SAS Content Server, which is part of the middle tier architecture. This server
stores digital content (such as documents, reports, and images) that is created and
used by SAS Web applications. For more information, see “SAS Content Server ” on
page 34 .
Note: For accessing specialized data sources, the SAS Intelligence Platform can also
include one or more data servers. These might include the SAS Scalable
Performance Data (SPD) Server and third-party database management system
(DBMS) products. The SAS OLAP Server also provides some data server
functionality. For information about data servers, see “Data in the SAS Intelligence
Platform” on page 15 .
The following sections describe these concepts:
• the central role of the SAS Metadata Server in the management of the SAS
Intelligence Platform
• the organizational principles that are used to manage SAS server resources, including
server objects, logical servers, and application servers
• the use of load balancing (for stored process servers and workspace servers) and
workspace pooling (for workspace servers)
• the facilities and capabilities that are provided for server logging and monitoring
SAS Metadata Server 23
The SAS Metadata Server uses the SAS Open Metadata Architecture, which provide
common metadata services to SAS and other applications. Third parties can access
metadata in the SAS Metadata Server by using an application programming interface
(API) that is supplied by SAS. SAS Metadata Bridges are available to support metadata
exchange with a variety of sources, including the Common Warehouse Metadata Model
(CWM).
System administrators also use SAS Management Console for general metadata
administration tasks, including backing up the metadata server, creating new
repositories, promoting metadata objects, and maintaining authorization information and
access rules for all types of resources.
The logical servers are then grouped into a SAS Application Server. The following
figure shows a sample configuration:
OLAP server 1
Logical OLAP
server
OLAP server 2
Logical
SAS/CONNECT SAS/CONNECT server
server
Application servers and logical servers are logical constructs that exist only in metadata.
In contrast, the server objects within a logical server correspond to actual server
processes that execute SAS code.
By default, applications such as SAS Information Map Studio, the SAS Information
Delivery Portal, and SAS Web Report Studio use SAS Pooled Workspace Servers to
query relational data. SAS Pooled Workspace Servers are configured to use server-
side pooling and load balancing.
client-side pooling
a configuration in which the client application maintains a collection of reusable
workspace server processes. In releases prior to 9.2, client-side pooling was the only
method of configuring pooling for workspace servers.
For more information about pooling, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Application
Server Administration Guide.
Chapter 5
Middle-Tier Components of the
SAS Intelligence Platform
content is stored using the same folder names, folder hierarchy, and permissions that the
SAS Metadata Server uses to store corresponding report metadata.
In addition, the SAS Content Server stores documents and other files that are to be
displayed in the SAS Information Delivery Portal or in SAS solutions.
To interact with the SAS Content Server, client applications use WebDAV-based
protocols for access, versioning, collaboration, security, and searching. Administrative
users can use the browser-based SAS Web Management Console to create, delete, and
manage permissions for folders on the SAS Content Server.
For more information about the SAS Content Server, see the SAS Intelligence Platform:
Middle-Tier Administration Guide.
Chapter 6
Clients in the SAS Intelligence
Platform
Overview of Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
SAS BI Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
SAS BI Portlets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
SAS Data Integration Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
SAS Enterprise Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
SAS Enterprise Miner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
SAS Forecast Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
SAS Information Delivery Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
SAS Information Map Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
JMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
SAS Management Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
SAS Model Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
SAS OLAP Cube Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
SAS Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
SAS Web Report Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
SAS Workflow Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
SAS Help Viewer for the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Overview of Clients
SAS Intelligence Platform clients include desktop applications and Web-based
applications. The following table lists the clients by type:
38 Chapter 6 • Clients in the SAS Intelligence Platform
The desktop applications are supported only on Microsoft Windows systems. The
exception is SAS Management Console, which runs on all platforms except z/OS. All of
the Java desktop applications require the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which
includes a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that executes the application and a set of
standard Java class libraries. If you have installed the SAS Foundation on a host, the JRE
will already be present on that machine. Otherwise, you can install the JRE that is
supplied by SAS before you install the first Java client.
The Web-based applications reside and execute on the middle tier (see “Middle-Tier
Components of the SAS Intelligence Platform” on page 31 ). They require only a Web
browser to be installed on each client machine, with the addition of Adobe Flash Player
for SAS BI Dashboard. The applications run on a Web application server and
communicate with the user by sending data to and receiving data from the user's
browser. For example, an application of this type displays its user interface by sending
an HTML document to the user's browser. The user can submit input to the application
by sending it an HTTP response—usually by clicking a link or submitting an HTML
form.
• access and view SAS data sources or any data source that is available from your SAS
server. There is no size limit on the SAS data sources that you can open.
• send results from one Microsoft Office application to another. For example, you can
send an analysis result that was created in Microsoft Excel to Microsoft Word or
PowerPoint; and you can send reports from Microsoft Outlook to Excel, Word, or
PowerPoint. When sending results, you can specify whether the results can be
refreshed or whether they should be static.
• refresh SAS results to reflect changes that were made to a data source that is saved
on a server or changes that were made to the SAS task or stored process.
• share results by sending e-mail, scheduling meetings, or assigning tasks in Microsoft
Outlook.
For more information, see the Help for the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. For
information about administrative tasks associated with SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office,
see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Desktop Application Administration Guide.
SAS BI Dashboard
The SAS BI Dashboard enables users to create, maintain, and view dashboards to
monitor key performance indicators that convey how well an organization is performing.
The application is Web-based, leveraging the capabilities of Adobe Flash Player, and
can be accessed from within the SAS Information Delivery Portal.
The SAS BI Dashboard includes an easy-to-use interface for creating dashboards that
include graphics, text, colors, and hyperlinks. Dashboards can link to SAS reports and
analytical results, SAS Strategic Performance Management scorecards and objects,
externally generated data, and virtually anything that is addressable by a Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI).
All content is displayed in a role-based, secure, customizable, and extensible
environment. End users can customize how information appears on their personal
dashboards.
For more information, see the SAS BI Dashboard Help, which is available from within
the product, and the SAS BI Dashboard: User's Guide, available at http://
support.sas.com. For information about administrative tasks associated with the
SAS BI Dashboard, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration
Guide.
SAS BI Portlets
SAS BI Portlets enable users to access, view, and work with business intelligence
content that is stored on the SAS Metadata Server and the SAS Content Server. The
portlets are seamlessly integrated into the SAS Information Delivery Portal and provide
added value to portal users. The portlets include the SAS Collection Portlet, the SAS
Diagnostics Portlet, the SAS Navigator Portlet, the SAS Report Portlet, and the SAS
Stored Process Portlet. For information about configuring, deploying, and administering
SAS BI Portlets, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration
Guide.
40 Chapter 6 • Clients in the SAS Intelligence Platform
JMP
JMP is interactive, exploratory data analysis and modeling software for the desktop.
JMP makes data analysis—and the resulting discoveries—visual and helps to
SAS Management Console 43
communicate those discoveries to others. JMP presents results both graphically and
numerically. By linking graphs to each other and to the data, JMP makes it easier to see
the trends, outliers, and other patterns that are hidden in your data.
Through interactive graphs that link statistics and data, JMP offers analyses from the
basic (univariate descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and regression) to the advanced
(generalized linear, mixed, and nonlinear models, data mining, and time series models).
A unified, visual approach makes these techniques available to all levels of users.
The JMP Scripting Language can be used to create interactive applications and to
communicate with SAS. JMP reads text files, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, SAS data
sets, and data from any ODBC data source.
JMP is included with SAS Visual BI, which can be ordered with SAS Enterprise BI
Server.
Organizing reports
You can create folders and subfolders for organizing your reports. Information
consumers can use keywords to find the reports that they need. Reports can be shared
with others or kept private. You can schedule reports to run at specified times and
distribute them via e-mail, either as PDF attachments or as embedded HTML files.
You can also publish reports to one or more publication channels.
Printing and exporting reports
You can preview a report in PDF and print the report, or save and e-mail it later. You
have control over many printing options, including page orientation and page range.
You can also export data as a spreadsheet and export graphs as images. You can also
export data for list tables, crosstabulation tables, and graphs. The output can be
viewed in Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word.
For more information, see the SAS Web Report Studio Help and the SAS Web Report
Studio: User's Guide, which are available from within the product. For information
about administrative tasks associated with SAS Web Report Studio, see the SAS
Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide.
Chapter 7
Security Overview
Metadata-Based Authorization
Authorization is the process of determining which users have which permissions for
which resources. The SAS Intelligence Platform includes an authorization mechanism
that consists of access controls that you define and store in a metadata repository. These
metadata-based controls supplement protections from the host environment and other
systems. You can use the metadata authorization layer to manage access to the following
resources:
• almost any metadata object (for example, reports, data definitions, information maps,
jobs, stored processes, and server definitions)
• OLAP data
• relational data (depending on the method by which the data is accessed)
You can set permissions at several levels of granularity:
• Repository-level controls provide default access controls for objects that have no
other access controls defined.
• Resource-level controls manage access to a specific item such as a report, an
information map, a stored process, a table, a column, a cube, or a folder. The controls
can be defined individually (as explicit settings) or in patterns (by using access
control templates).
• Fine-grained controls affect access to subsets of data within a resource. You can use
these controls to specify who can access particular rows within a table or members
within a cube dimension.
You can assign permissions to individual users or to user groups. Each SAS user has an
identity hierarchy that starts with the user's individual SAS identity and can include
multiple levels of nested group memberships.
The effect of a particular permission setting is influenced by any related settings that
have higher precedence. For example, if a report inherits a grant from its parent folder
but also has an explicit denial, the explicit setting determines the outcome.
The available metadata-based permissions are summarized in the following table.
Permissions Use
Read, Write, Create, or Delete Use to control user interactions with the
underlying computing resource that is
represented by a metadata object; and to
control interactions with some metadata
objects, such as dashboard objects.
Authentication and Identity Management Overview 49
Permissions Use
For accountability, we recommend creating an individual SAS identity for each person
who uses the SAS environment. These identities enable administrators to make access
distinctions and audit individual actions in the metadata layer. The identities also provide
personal folders for each user. The metadata server maintains its own copy of each user
ID for the purpose of establishing a SAS identity.
Identity management tasks can be performed manually using SAS Management Console
or by using the following batch processes:
• To load user information into the metadata repository, you first extract user and
group information from one or more enterprise identity sources. Then you use SAS
bulk-load macros to create identity metadata from the extracted information. SAS
provides sample applications that extract user and group information and logins from
an Active Directory server and from UNIX /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.
• To periodically update user information in the metadata repository, you extract user
and group information from your enterprise identity sources and from the SAS
metadata. Then you use SAS macros to compare the two sets of data and identify the
needed updates. After validating the changes, you use SAS macros to load the
updates into the metadata repository.
Note: You cannot use these batch processes to manage passwords. Users can manage
their own passwords with the SAS Personal Login Manager.
The metadata identity information is used by the security model's credential management
and authorization features. For example, when a user logs on to SAS Data Integration
Studio, the metadata server wants to know who the user is so that it can determine which
libraries, stored processes, and jobs should be displayed in the desktop client. If a user
makes a request in SAS Data Integration Studio to run a job against an Oracle table, the
Oracle server wants to know who the user is so that it can determine whether the user
has access to the data in the table.
Web environment is integrated with a third-party authentication provider, then the SAS
Web applications participate in that scheme.
Encryption Overview
SAS offers encryption features to help you protect information on disk and in transit.
When passwords must be stored, they are encrypted or otherwise encoded. Passwords
that are transmitted by SAS are also encrypted or encoded. You can choose to encrypt all
traffic instead of encrypting only credentials.
52 Chapter 7 • Security Overview
If you have SAS/SECURE, you can use an industry standard encryption algorithm such
as AES. SAS/SECURE is an add-on product that is licensed separately and offers
maximum protection. This product includes support of the Federal Information
Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 encryption specification. If you do not have
SAS/SECURE, you can use the SASProprietary algorithm to help protect information.
Glossary
ACT
See access control template.
ARM
See Application Response Measurement.
authentication
See client authentication.
authentication provider
a software component that is used for identifying and authenticating users. For
example, an LDAP server or the host operating system can provide authentication.
authorization
the process of determining which users have which permissions for which resources.
The outcome of the authorization process is an authorization decision that either
permits or denies a specific action on a specific resource, based on the requesting
user's identity and group memberships.
browser
See Web browser.
capability
an application feature that is under role-based management. Typically, a capability
corresponds to a menu item or button. For example, a Report Creation capability
might correspond to a New Report menu item in a reporting application. Capabilities
are assigned to roles.
client authentication
the process of verifying the identity of a person or process for security purposes.
54 Glossary
client-side pooling
a configuration in which the client application maintains a collection of reusable
workspace server processes.
credentials
the user ID and password for an account that exists in some authentication provider.
cube
See OLAP cube.
cube
See multidimensional database.
data mart
a subset of the data in a data warehouse. A data mart is optimized for a specific set of
users who need a particular set of queries and reports.
data set
See SAS data set.
data warehouse
a collection of data that is extracted from one or more sources for the purpose of
query, reporting, and analysis. Data warehouses are generally used for storing large
amounts of data that originates in other corporate applications or that is extracted
from external data sources.
database server
a server that provides relational database services to a client. Oracle, DB/2 and
Teradata are examples of relational databases.
DBMS
See database management system.
encryption
the act or process of converting data to a form that is unintelligible except to the
intended recipients.
foundation services
See SAS Foundation Services.
HTTP
a protocol for transferring data to the Internet. HTTP provides a way for servers and
Web clients to communicate. It is based on the TCP/IP protocol.
identity
See metadata identity.
Glossary 55
information map
a collection of data items and filters that provides a user-friendly view of a data
source. When you use an information map to query data for business needs, you do
not have to understand the structure of the underlying data source or know how to
program in a query language.
internal account
a SAS account that you can create as part of a user definition. Internal accounts are
intended for metadata administrators and some service identities; these accounts are
not intended for regular users.
IOM
See Integrated Object Model.
IOM server
a SAS object server that is launched in order to fulfill client requests for IOM
services.
IWA
See Integrated Windows authentication.
Java RMI
See remote method invocation.
JDK
a software development environment that is available from Oracle Corporation. The
JDK includes a Java Runtime Environment (JRE), a compiler, a debugger, and other
tools for developing Java applets and applications.
JVM
a program that interprets Java programming code so that the code can be executed by
the operating system on a computer. The JVM can run on either the client or the
server. The JVM is the main software component that makes Java programs portable
across platforms. A JVM is included with JDKs and JREs from Oracle Corporation,
as well as with most Web browsers.
56 Glossary
LDAP
a protocol that is used for accessing directories or folders. LDAP is based on the X.
500 standard, but it is simpler and, unlike X.500, it supports TCP/IP.
load balancing
for IOM bridge connections, a program that runs in the object spawner and that uses
an algorithm to distribute work across object server processes on the same or
separate machines in a cluster.
logical server
the second-level object in the metadata for SAS servers. A logical server specifies
one or more of a particular type of server component, such as one or more SAS
Workspace Servers.
MDDB
See multidimensional database.
metadata
descriptive data about data that is stored and managed in a database, in order to
facilitate access to captured and archived data for further use.
metadata identity
a metadata object that represents an individual user or a group of users in a SAS
metadata environment. Each individual and group that accesses secured resources on
a SAS Metadata Server should have a unique metadata identity within that server.
metadata object
a set of attributes that describe a table, a server, a user, or another resource on a
network. The specific attributes that a metadata object includes vary depending on
which metadata model is being used.
metadata server
a server that provides metadata management services to one or more client
applications. A SAS Metadata Server is an example.
multidimensional database
a specialized data storage structure in which data is presummarized and cross-
tabulated and then stored as individual cells in a matrix format, rather than in the
row-and-column format of relational database tables. The source data can come
either from a data warehouse or from other data sources. MDDBs can give users
quick, unlimited views of multiple relationships in large quantities of summarized
data.
object spawner
a program that instantiates object servers that are using an IOM bridge connection.
The object spawner listens for incoming client requests for IOM services. When the
spawner receives a request from a new client, it launches an instance of an IOM
server to fulfill the request. Depending on which incoming TCP/IP port the request
Glossary 57
was made on, the spawner either invokes the administrator interface or processes a
request for a UUID (Universal Unique Identifier).
OLAP
See online analytical processing.
OLAP cube
a logical set of data that is organized and structured in a hierarchical,
multidimensional arrangement to enable quick analysis of data. A cube includes
measures, and it can have numerous dimensions and levels of data.
OLAP schema
a container for OLAP cubes. A cube is assigned to an OLAP schema when it is
created, and an OLAP schema is assigned to a SAS OLAP Server when the server is
defined in the metadata. A SAS OLAP Server can access only the cubes that are in
its assigned OLAP schema.
parallel I/O
a method of input and output that takes advantage of multiple CPUs and multiple
controllers, with multiple disks per controller to read or write data in independent
threads.
parallel processing
a method of processing that divides a large job into several smaller jobs that can be
executed in parallel on multiple CPUs.
permission
the type of access that a user or group has to a resource. The permission defines what
the user or group can do with the resource. Examples of permissions are
ReadMetadata and WriteMetadata.
plug-in
a file that modifies, enhances, or extends the capabilities of an application program.
The application program must be designed to accept plug-ins, and the plug-ins must
meet design criteria specified by the developers of the application program.
RDBMS
See relational database management system.
RMI
See remote method invocation.
role
See user role.
SAS/CONNECT server
a server that provides SAS/CONNECT services to a client. When SAS Data
Integration Studio generates code for a job, it uses SAS/CONNECT software to
submit code to remote computers. SAS Data Integration Studio can also use
SAS/CONNECT software for interactive access to remote libraries.
SAS/SHARE server
the result of an execution of the SERVER procedure, which is part of SAS/SHARE
software. A server runs in a separate SAS session that services users' SAS sessions
by controlling and executing input and output requests to one or more SAS libraries.
SASProprietary algorithm
a fixed encoding algorithm that is included with Base SAS software. The
SASProprietary algorithm requires no additional SAS product licenses. It provides a
medium level of security.
server-side pooling
a configuration in which a SAS object spawner maintains a collection of reusable
workspace server processes that are available for clients. The usage of servers in this
pool is governed by the authorization rules that are set on the servers in the SAS
metadata.
60 Glossary
service
one or more application components that an authorized user or application can call at
any time to provide results that conform to a published specification. For example,
network services transmit data or provide conversion of data in a network, database
services provide for the storage and retrieval of data in a database, and Web services
interact with each other on the World Wide Web.
single sign-on
an authentication model that enables users to access a variety of computing resources
without being repeatedly prompted for their user IDs and passwords. For example,
single sign-on can enable a user to access SAS servers that run on different platforms
without interactively providing the user's ID and password for each platform. Single
sign-on can also enable someone who is using one application to launch other
applications based on the authentication that was performed when the user initially
logged on.
SMP
See symmetric multiprocessing.
spawner
See object spawner.
SPD Server
See SAS SPD Server.
SSO
See single sign-on.
stored process
See SAS Stored Process.
symmetric multiprocessing
a hardware and software architecture that can improve the speed of I/O and
processing. An SMP machine has multiple CPUs and a thread-enabled operating
system. An SMP machine is usually configured with multiple controllers and with
multiple disk drives per controller. Short form: SMP.
theme
a collection of specifications (for example, colors, fonts, and font styles) and
graphics that control the appearance of an application.
thread
a single path of execution of a process that runs on a core on a CPU.
transformation
in data integration, an operation that extracts data, transforms data, or loads data into
data stores.
user role
a set of permissions that define which actions a user, or a group of users, can take in
an application.
warehouse
See data warehouse.
Glossary 61
Web application
an application that is accessed via a Web browser over a network such as the Internet
or an intranet. SAS Web applications are Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) applications
that are delivered via Web application archive (WAR) files. The applications can
depend on Java and non-Java Web technologies.
Web authentication
a configuration in which users of Web applications and Web services are verified at
the Web perimeter and the metadata server trusts that verification.
Web browser
a software application that is used to view Web content, and also to download or
upload information. The browser submits URL (Uniform Resource Locator) requests
to a Web server and then translates the HTML code into a visual display.
WebDAV
See Web-distributed authoring and versioning.
62 Glossary
63
Index
S
N SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office 5, 38
Netezza databases 17 SAS Administrator account 51
network model database systems 16 SAS Anonymous Web Service User
account 51
SAS BI Dashboard 5, 39
O SAS BI Dashboard Web Part 45
object spawner 22 SAS BI Portlets 5, 39
load balancing and 27 SAS BI Server 2
monitoring 28 SAS BI Web Services for Java 33
SAS Spawned Servers account 51 SAS Business Analytics Framework 1
OLAP cubes 5, 18, 22, 44 SAS Comment Manager 34
online Help SAS Content Server 22, 34
SAS Help Viewer for the Web 46 SAS Data Integration Server 2
Oracle databases 17 SAS Data Integration Studio 3, 40
Oracle WebLogic Server 32 SAS Data Quality Server 4
SAS Data Surveyor 4, 11
for clickstream data 11
P for SAP 11
parallel storage 5, 17 SAS Enterprise BI Server 2
how it works 17 SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server 2
options for implementing 17 SAS Enterprise Guide 5, 40
passwords 50, 51 SAS Enterprise Miner 6, 41
permissions 48 SAS Forecast Server 6, 41
metadata-based 48 SAS Forecast Studio 41
Platform Suite for SAS 7 SAS Foundation Services 35
plug-ins 43 SAS Framework Data Server 11, 22
pooled workspace server 13, 22 SAS grid computing 29
logical 25 SAS Grid Manager 7, 29
pooling SAS Help Viewer for the Web 46
client-side 28 SAS identity 24, 49
server-side 13, 22, 27 SAS In-Database 4, 16
workspace 27 SAS Information Delivery Portal 5, 42
portlets 5, 39 SAS Information Map Studio 5, 42
Preferences Manager 34 SAS Installer account 51
printing reports 46 SAS Intelligence Platform 1
process flows 40 accessibility features 2
Process Manager 7 architecture 9
processing servers components 2
single sign-on for 51 roles in 49
security 47
servers 21
R single sign-on 50
relational databases 16 strategic benefits 7
relational storage 4 SAS Logon Manager 33
reporting, security 52 SAS Management Console 7, 43
reports 45 defining data source objects 19
creating 45 SAS Metadata Repository 7
organizing 46 loading user information into 50
printing and exporting 46 metadata in 23
viewing and working with 45 updating user information in 50
66 Index
V Web applications 13
verifying identities 49 single sign-on for 50
Web-based applications 37
workspace pooling 27
W workspace servers
Web application server 32 See SAS Workspace Server
68 Index