Understanding the LIBNAME Engine

SAS Federation Server LIBNAME engine provides a bridge from legacy SAS data access services to the data access technology that is provided by SAS Federation Server. From a Base SAS session, the LIBNAME engine enables a SAS application such as a SAS procedure or a SAS DATA step to process data using SAS Federation Server data access technology. For example, using the LIBNAME engine, you can process data sources such as a SAS data set, and the third-party databases that are supported by SAS Federation Server.

SAS Federation Server is a data server that provides scalable, threaded, multi-user, standards-based data access technology in order to process and seamlessly integrate data from multiple data sources. The server acts as a hub that provides clients with data by accessing, managing, and sharing SAS data as well as data from several third-party databases.

SAS Federation Server provides access to several types of data. The SAS Federation Server LIBNAME engine can be used to access any data source that is supported by SAS Federation Server. For a list of supported data sources, see SAS Federation Server: Administrator’s Guide.

Structured Query Language (SQL) is the data access language for the server. Clients typically connect to SAS Federation Server and submit requests in the form of FedSQL statements. The FedSQL language is the implementation of SQL used by SAS Federation Server to access relational databases. FedSQL provides a subset of the ANSI SQL standard SQL:1999 core-compliant syntax as well as extra extensions. For applications, FedSQL provides a common SQL syntax across all data sources. The LIBNAME engine for SAS Federation Server allows you to manipulate data on SAS Federation Server with the SAS DATA step, the SAS SQL procedure, and other SAS procedures.

For more information about SAS Federation Server and its data access services, see SAS Federation Server: Administrator’s Guide.