When high-performance analytical procedures run in distributed mode, input data must be brought to the computation that is performed on the nodes of the grid, and output data must be sent from the computational nodes. This can be accomplished in several ways:
Client-data (local-data) mode: The input and output data for the analytic task are stored on the client machine where the high-performance procedure is invoked. When the procedure runs, the SAS High-Performance Analytics infrastructure sends input data from the client to the distributed computing environment and sends output data from the distributed computing environment to the client.
Parallel symmetric mode: Input and output data are stored on the same nodes that are used for the distributed computation, and the data move in parallel from the data store to the computational nodes without crossing node boundaries. Parallel symmetric mode is available with the following distributed data sources:
Data in Greenplum databases that are collocated with the computational nodes. This access mode is also called alongside-the-database mode. For more information, see the section Alongside-the-Database Execution.
Data in SASHDAT format in the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) that is collocated with the computational nodes. This access mode is also called alongside-HDFS mode. For more information, see the section Alongside-HDFS Execution by Using the SASHDAT Engine.
Data in a SAS LASR Analytic Server that is collocated with the computational nodes. This access mode is also called alongside-LASR mode. For more information, see the section Running High-Performance Analytical Procedures Alongside a SAS LASR Analytic Server in Distributed Mode.
Parallel asymmetric mode: The primary reason for providing this mode is to enable you to manage and house data on appliances (the data appliances) and to run high-performance analytical procedures on a different appliance (the computing appliance). The high-performance analytical procedures run in a SAS process on the computing appliance. For each data source that is accessed in parallel asymmetric mode, a SAS Embedded Process must run on the associated data appliance. Data are requested by a SAS data feeder that runs on the computing appliance and communicates with the SAS Embedded Process on the data appliance. The SAS Embedded Process transfers the data in parallel to the SAS data feeder that runs on each of the nodes of the computing appliance. This mode is called asymmetric mode because the number of nodes on the data appliance does not need to match the number of nodes on the computing appliance. Parallel asymmetric mode is supported for data in Teradata, Greenplum, and Oracle databases and for data in HDFS and SAP HANA. In these cases, the parallel asymmetric access is somewhat loosely described as being asymmetric alongside access, even though the data storage and computation can occur on different appliances. For more information, see the section Running High-Performance Analytical Procedures in Asymmetric Mode.
Through-the-client mode: When data can be accessed through a SAS/ACCESS interface but the data reside in a file system or in a distributed data source on which a SAS Embedded Process is not running, those data cannot be accessed in parallel in either symmetric or asymmetric mode. The SAS/ACCESS interface is used to transfer input data from the data source to the client machine on which the high-performance procedure is invoked, and the data are then sent to the distributed computing environment by the SAS High-Performance Analytics infrastructure. The data path is reversed for output data. This mode of data access is referred to as through-the-client access.