Everyone is short on time. Fortunately, SAS user and consultant Phil Holland isn't short on ideas. Phil wrote Saving Time and Money Using SAS a couple of years ago and it has become a go-to reference for users around the globe.
Phil is one of the most dynamic people I know. If you haven't encountered him in person at a SAS Global Forum or elsewhere on the road, you can easily find him on LinkedIn and his Squidoo page. And Phil's personality and passion for using SAS are apparent in his book. For instance, in a review Dr. LeRoy Bessler wrote "There is wise advice to enable you to get the most out of your hardware when using SAS. But most remarkable are the creative ideas and ingenious methods of this versatile author..." I hope that this week's featured SAS author's tip will make an impression on you.
The following excerpt is from SAS Press author Phil Holland's book "Saving Time and Money Using SAS" Copyright © 2007, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina, USA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (please note that results may vary depending on your version of SAS software)
5.3 Access to Live Database Data
No self-respecting database administrator should ever allow unregulated access to live data available to SAS/ACCESS software users, particularly if the database is being used to support transaction-based processing. The performance impact on live production systems can be dramatic if a long-running query is started. Response times of production transactions can greatly increase as the processing resources become scarcer due to other processes taking away more and more.
The usual alternative is to create a copy of the database at set intervals to provide a regularly updated snapshot of the live database for querying by SAS/ACCESS. This database copy would still need to be maintained by the database administrators to make certain the query performance is acceptable without adversely affecting the performance of the production systems.
Visit Phil Holland's author page to read a free chapter from Saving Time and Money Using SAS and to take a peek at the upcoming SAS Press book that he is coauthoring- PROC TEMPLATE Made Easy: A Guide for SAS Users.
