Is there a “Big Red Button” to use The SAS Platform?

SAS Viya is our latest extension of the SAS Platform and interoperable with SAS® 9.4. Designed to enable analytics to the enterprise, it seamlessly scales for data of any size, type, speed and complexity. It was also a star at this year’s SAS Global Forum 2018. In this series of articles, we will review several of the most interesting SAS Viya talks from the event.

You can read all the articles in this series or check out the individual interviews by clicking on the titles below:
Part 1: Technology that gets the most from the Cloud.
Part 2: Is there a “Big Red Button” to use The SAS Platform?

For software users and SAS administrators, the question often becomes how to streamline their approach into the easiest to use system that most effectively completes the task at hand. At SAS Global Forum 2018, the topic of a “Big Red Button” was an idea that got audience members asking – is there a way to have just a few clicks complete all the stages of the software administration lifecycle? In this article, we review Sergey Iglov’s SAS Global Forum paper “A ‘Big Red Button’ for SAS Administrators: Myth or Reality?” to get a better understanding of what this could look like, and how it could change administrators’ jobs for the better. Iglov is a director at SASIT Limited.

What is a “Big Red Button?”

With the many different ways the SAS Platform can be utilized, there is a question as to whether there is a single process that can control “infrastructure provisioning, software installation and configuration, maintenance, and decommissioning.” It has been believed that each of these steps has a different process; however, as Iglov concluded, there may be a way to integrate these steps together with the “Big Red Button.”

This mystery “button” that Iglov talked about would allow administrators to easily add or delete parts of the system and automate changes throughout; thus, the entire program could adapt to the administrator’s needs with a simple click.

Software as a System –SAS Viya and cloud based technologies

Right now, SAS Viya is compatible with a centralized automated deployment process. SAS Viya, through its support for cloud, enables access to different types of users and “doesn’t require a SAS Software depot to be created and maintained,” as Iglov explained. Through insights easily created and shared on the cloud, SAS Viya stands out, as users can access a centrally hosted control panel instead of needing individual installations.

Using CloudFormation by Amazon Web Services

At this point, the “Big Red Button” points toward systems such as CloudFormation. CloudFormation allows users of Amazon Web Services to lay out the infrastructure needed for their product visually, and easily make changes that will affect the software. As Iglov said, “Once a template is deployed using CloudFormation it can be used as a stack to simplify resources management. For example, when a stack is deleted all related resources are deleted automatically as well.”

Conclusion

Connecting to SAS Viya, CloudFormation can install and configure the system, and make changes. This would help SAS administrators adapt the product to their needs, in order to derive intelligence from data. While the future potential to use a one-click button is out there for many different platforms, using cloud based software and programs such as CloudFormation enable users to go through each step of SAS Platform’s administration lifecycle efficiently and effectively.

Additional Resources

SAS Viya Brochure
Sergey Iglov: "A 'Big Red Button' for SAS administrators: Myth or Reality?"

Additional SAS Global Forum 2018 talks of interest for SAS Administrators

A Programming Approach to Implementing SAS® Metadata-Bound Libraries for SAS® Data Set Encryption Deepali Rai, SAS Institute Inc.

Command-Line Administration in SAS® Viya®
Danny Hamrick, SAS

External Databases: Tools for the SAS® Administrator
Mathieu Gaouette, Prospective MG inc.

SAS® Environment Manager – A SAS® Viya® Administrator’s Swiss Army Knife
Michelle Ryals, Trevor Nightingale, SAS Institute Inc.

Troubleshooting your SAS® Grid Environment
Jason Hawkins, Amadeus Software Limited

Multi-Factor Authentication with SAS® and Symantec VIP
Jody Steadman, Mike Roda, SAS Institute Inc.

OpenID Connect Opens the Door to SAS® Viya® APIs
Mike Roda, SAS Institute Inc.

Understanding Security for SAS® Visual Analytics 8.2 on SAS® Viya®
Antonio Gianni, Faisal Qamar, SAS Institute Inc.

Latest and Greatest: Best Practices for Migrating to SAS® 9.4
Alec Fernandez, Leigh Fernandez, SAS Institute Inc.

Planning for Migration from SAS® 9.4 to SAS® Viya®
Don B. Hayes, DLL Consulting Inc.; Spencer Hayes, Cached Consulting LLC; Michael Shealy, Cached Consulting LLC; Rebecca Hayes, Green Peach Consulting Inc.

SAS® Viya®: Architect for High Availability Now and Users Will Thank You Later
Jerry Read, SAS Institute Inc.

Taming Change: Bulk Upgrading SAS® 9.4 Environments to a New Maintenance Release
Javor Evstatiev, Andrey Turlov

Is there a “Big Red Button” to use The SAS Platform? was published on SAS Users.