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 cluster of computers. This workload distribution enables
the following functionality:
Workload balancing
enabling multiple users
in a SAS environment to distribute workloads to a shared pool of resources.
Accelerated processing
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.
Scheduling jobs
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. :
Grid Manager plug-in
a plug-in for SAS Management
Console that provides a monitoring and management interface for the
jobs and resources in your grid
grid syntax
the SAS syntax necessary
to grid-enable the SAS workload
SAS Grid Manager Client Utility
a command-line utility
that enables you to submit SAS programs, operating system commands,
or command files to a grid for processing. This utility allows a grid
client to submit SAS programs to a grid without requiring that SAS
be installed on the machine performing the submission. It also enables
jobs to be processed on the grid without requiring that the client
remain active.
Platform Suite for SAS
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.
Process Manager (PM)
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.
Enterprise Grid Orchestrator (EGO)
provides support for
critical service failover in a a highly available (HA) environment.
EGO provides functions for monitoring critical services, restarting
services if they stop, and starting services on a failover host when
needed.
Platform RTM for SAS
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://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/setupcat.jsp?cat=SAS+Grid+Manager