Editor's note (4/11/17): Full proceedings from SAS Global Forum 2017 (including for the presentations mentioned in this blog) can be found at http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings17/.

SAS Global Forum 2017 is just a month away and, if you’re a SAS administrator, it’s a great place to meet your peers, share your experiences and attend presentations on SAS administration tips and tricks.

SAS Global Forum 2017 takes place in Orlando FL, April 2-5. You can find more information at https://www.sas.com/en_us/events/sas-global-forum/sas-global-forum-2017.html.  This schedule is for the entire conference and include pre and post conference events.

If you’re an administrator, though, I wanted to highlight a few events that would be of particular interest to you:

On Sunday, April 2nd from 2-4 pm there is a “Helping the SAS Administrator Succeed” event. More details can be found here.

On Monday, April 3rd from 6:30-8:00 pm the SAS Users Group for Administrators (SUGA) will be hosting a Community Linkup, with panelists on hand to help answer questions from SAS administrators. Location will be in the Dolphin Level – Asia 4.

There are two post-conference tutorials for the SAS Administrators:

Introduction to SAS Grid Manager, Wednesday, April 5th from 2:30-6:30pm
SAS Metadata Security, Thursday, April 6th from 8:00am-noon

SAS Environment Manger:  Advanced topics, Thursday, April 6th from 1:00-5:00pm
More details can be found here.

For a list of the papers on the topic of SAS Administration, you can visit this link. You will see that SAS Administration has been broken down to Architecture, Deployment, SAS Administration and Security subtopic areas.

Some of the key papers under each sub-topic area are:

Architecture
Twelve Cluster Technologies Available in SAS 9.4
Deploying SAS on Software-Defined and Virtual Storage Systems
Shared File Systems:  Determining the Best Choice for your Distributed SAS Foundation Applications
Do You have a Disaster Recovery Plan for Your SAS Infrastructure

Deployment
Pillars of a Successful SAS Implementation with Lessons from Boston Scientific
Getting the Latest and Greatest from SAS 9.4: Best Practices for Upgrades and Migrations
Migrating Large, Complex SAS Environments: In-Place versus New Build

SAS Administration
SAS Metadata Security 201:  Security Basics for a New Administrator
SAS Environment Manager: Advanced Topics
The Top Ten SAS Studio Tips for SAS Grid Manager Administrators
Implementing Capacity Management Policies on a SASLASR Analytic Server Platform: Can You Afford Not To?
Auditing in SAS Visual Analytics
SAS Viya: What it Means for SAS Administration

Security
Guidelines for Protecting Your Computer, Network, and Data from Malware Threats
Getting Started with Designing and Implementing a SAS® 9.4 Metadata and File System Security Design
SAS® Metadata Security 301: Auditing your SAS Environment
SAS® Users Audit: An Automated Approach to Metadata Reporting
SAS® Metadata Security

In addition to the breakout sessions, there is an Administration Super Demo station where short presentations will be given. The schedule for these presentations is:

Sunday, April 2nd:
17:00     Shared File Systems for SAS Grid Manager
18:00     Where to Place SAS WORK in your SAS Grid Infrastructure

Monday, April 3rd:
11:00     Hands-on Secure Socket Layer Configuration for SAS 9.4 Environment Manager
12:00     Introduction to Configuring SAS Metadata Security for Mutlitenancy
13:00     SAS Viya Overview
14:00     Accelerate your SAS Programs with GPUs
15:00     Authentication and Identity Management with SAS Viya

Tuesday, April 4th:
11:00     Accelerate your SAS Programs with GPUs
12:00     Accelerating your Analytics Adoption with the Analytics Fast Track
13:00     New Deployment Experience for SAS
14:00     Managing Authorization in SAS Viya
15:00     Clustering in SAS Viya
16:00     A Docker Container Toolbox for the Data Scientist

As you can see, there is lots for SAS Administrators to learn and opportunities for SAS Administrators to socialize with fellow SAS Administrators.

Here’s to seeing you in sunny Florida next month.

P.S. SAS administrators don’t have to go to SAS Global Forum to get help administering their environment. In addition to SAS Global Forum and the SUGA group mentioned above, you can find out more information on resources for administrators in this blog. You can also visit our new webpage devoted just to users who administer their organization’s SAS environment. You can find that page here.