What's New in Middle-Tier Administration for the SAS 9.3 Intelligence Platform

Overview

The SAS 9.3 middle-tier software has the following changes and enhancements:

SAS Middle Tier Supported on 64-Bit Systems Only
SAS BI Web Services for .NET Is No Longer Shipped
Web Application Logging with Log4j
Changes to the Audit Service
New Configuration Scripting Tools
Predefined Role for SAS Comment Manager
New SAS Logon Manager Security Policy to Disable Concurrent Logon Sessions
Documentation Enhancements

SAS Middle Tier Supported on 64-Bit Systems Only

The SAS 9.3 middle-tier software is supported on 64-bit operating systems only.

SAS BI Web Services for .NET Is No Longer Shipped

SAS has discontinued the SAS BI Web Services for .NET product. Customers that used the functionality provided by this application are encouraged to transition to the SAS BI Web Services for Java product.

Web Application Logging with Log4j

In the SAS 9.2 release, logging for the SAS Web applications was performed with a logging service. For the SAS 9.3 release, logging is performed with log4j. Logging configuration is performed in two ways. First, each Web application reads a log4j configuration file. Second, some Web applications enable dynamic logging changes that can be set in the SAS Web Administration Console.

Changes to the Audit Service

In the SAS 9.2 release, audit records could be stored to a log file or to a database. In the SAS 9.3 release, all SAS deployments are configured to use the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform database. The SAS 9.3 release also has an update to the SAS Web Administration Console to display user-level audit information.

New Configuration Scripting Tools

For the SAS 9.3 release, the SAS middle-tier software includes a configuration scripting tool for each of the three supported Web applications servers. The primary purpose of the configuration scripting tools is to support configuring a Web application server for sites that do not permit running the SAS Deployment Wizard on a middle-tier machine.

In the first maintenance release of SAS 9.3, the syntax for invoking a single command on JBoss and WebSphere Application Server changed. In addition, the commands or operations are no longer pre-production status.

Predefined Role for SAS Comment Manager

In the SAS 9.2 release, editing and deletion capabilities in the SAS Comment Manager were accomplished by creating a role and assigning users to that role. In SAS 9.3, users requiring these capabilities should be assigned to a new predefined role, Comments:Administrator.

New SAS Logon Manager Security Policy to Disable Concurrent Logon Sessions

For the SAS 9.3 release, SAS Logon Manager can be configured to prevent concurrent logon sessions. This option might be attractive for deployments in highly regulated environments.

Documentation Enhancements

In the second maintenance release of SAS 9.3, information about the Web application start-up sequence is enhanced. For deployments that use IBM WebSphere Application Server, there is a sequence for five applications, but the remaining Web applications can be started in any sequence.
In the second maintenance release of SAS 9.3, procedural information about configuring third-party vendor software such as HTTP servers and proxy plug-ins is removed. Documentation that describes the procedural steps is provided at http://support.sas.com/thirdpartysupport.
In the first maintenance release of SAS 9.3, the configuration scripting tools chapter is enhanced to include more procedural information. Step-action procedures that describe how to run the tools to configure the middle-tier software are new.
In the first maintenance release of SAS 9.3, procedural information about configuring Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is removed. Documentation that describes the procedural steps is provided at http://support.sas.com/thirdpartysupport.
SAS Logon Manager is documented in its own chapter. New configuration steps are provided for configuring custom logon, log off, and time-out messages. More information is provided about configuring HTTP session time-out intervals.
The configuration steps for rebuilding and redeploying the SAS Web applications has been revised. More information about when the Web application server can be running, or must be stopped, is provided.
Information about configuring the JGroups bind address has been added. This information was previously provided by SAS Technical Support in a SAS Note.