A SAS grid computing environment is one in which SAS computing
tasks are distributed among multiple computers on a network, all under
the control of SAS Grid Manager. In this environment, workloads are
distributed across a grid of computers. This workload distribution
enables the following functionality:
enabling multiple users
in a SAS environment to distribute workloads to a shared pool of resources.
allowing users to distribute
subtasks of individual SAS jobs to a shared pool of resources. The
grid enables the subtasks to run in parallel on different parts of
the grid, which completes the job much faster.
allowing users to schedule
jobs, which are automatically routed to the shared resource pool at
an appropriate time.
SAS Grid Manager provides
load balancing, policy enforcement, efficient resource allocation,
prioritization, and a highly available analytic environment for SAS
products and solutions running in a shared grid environment. It also
separates the SAS applications from the infrastructure used to execute
the applications. This enables you to transparently add or remove
hardware resources as needed and also provides tolerance of hardware
failures within the grid infrastructure. SAS Grid Manager integrates
the resource management and scheduling capabilities of the Platform
Suite for SAS with the SAS 4GL syntax and subsequently with several
SAS products and solutions.
SAS
Grid Manager includes these components, as illustrated in Grid Topology. :
a plug-in for SAS Management
Console that provides a monitoring and management interface for the
jobs and resources in your grid
the SAS syntax necessary
to grid-enable the SAS workload
components provided
by Platform Computing to provide efficient resource allocation, policy
management, and load balancing of SAS workload requests.
The Platform Suite for SAS includes these components:
Load Sharing Facility (LSF)
this facility dispatches
all jobs submitted to it, either by Process Manager or directly by
SAS, and returns the status of each job. LSF also manages any resource
requirements and performs load balancing across machines in a grid
environment.
this is the interface
used by the SAS scheduling framework to control the submission of
scheduled jobs to LSF and manage any dependencies between the jobs.
Process Manager includes two optional components, Calendar Editor
and Flow Manager.
Calendar
Editor is a scheduling client for a Process Manager server. It enables
you to create new calendar entries for time dependencies.
Flow Manager
provides a visual representation of flows that are created and scheduled
through the Schedule Manager plug-in as well as reports scheduled
through SAS Web Report Studio. Flow Manager enables you to view and
update the status of jobs in a flow and rerun jobs.
Grid Management Services (GMS)
this is the interface
to the Grid Manager plug-in in SAS Management Console. It provides
the run-time information about jobs, hosts, and queues for display
in SAS Management Console.
this is a high-performance
implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard for
both the Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems. It provides
the middleware used by grid-enabled SAS procedures.
a Web-based tool that
enables you to graphically view the status of devices and services
in a SAS grid environment as well as manage the policies and configuration
of the grid. This application is not part of Platform Suite for SAS,
but can be downloaded separately from http://www.sas.com/apps/demosdownloads/platformRTM_PROD__sysdep.jsp?packageID=000669