Overview of Migrating SAS Visual Analytics

This document is designed to be used with the SAS Intelligence Platform: Migration Guide and previous sections of the SAS Visual Analytics: Installation and Configuration Guide (Distributed SAS LASR).

Migration is a process in which your SAS content and configuration from an earlier SAS release are upgraded to run in a later SAS release. Same release migration is also possible (for example, 7.4 to 7.4). When performed successfully, migration attempts to preserve as much of your current content and configuration as possible, reduce the number of manual upgrade tasks, and minimize system downtime.

SAS provides automated migration tools—the SAS Migration Utility and the SAS Deployment Wizard. You can migrate with the SAS automated migration tools in the following scenarios:

Migration is a one-time operation to deploy SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 and upgrade your release 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.1, 7.2, or 7.3 content. By contrast, you can choose to do the following:

As with all migrations of SAS software, the system to which you are migrating (target) must have the same number of machines on the same operating systems as the system from which you are migrating (source).

Provided that you are properly licensed, you can change the type of SAS LASR Analytic Server (distributed or non-distributed) in your SAS Visual Analytics environment with the automated migration tools. SAS LASR Analytic Server migration supports the following:

The following deployments are not supported by the automated migration tools:

The following list summarizes the steps required to install SAS 9.4 and migrate earlier SAS version content on a single machine or in a distributed, heterogeneous environment:

1. Review additional documentation.

2. Design your migration.

3. Perform pre-migration tasks.

4. Upgrade your SAS High-Performance Analytics infrastructure.

5. Install SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 and migrate your content.

6. Perform post-migration tasks.

7. Validate your migration.

The sections that follow provide brief descriptions of each of these tasks. Subsequent sections provide the step-by-step instructions that you need to perform.

It is very important to review all of the different documents associated with deploying your SAS software. There can be late-breaking information. Or, instructions that are specific to a particular configuration might be too narrow to be included in the SAS Visual Analytics: Installation and Configuration Guide (Distributed SAS LASR). For more information, see Reviewing Additional Documentation.

Designing your migration means reviewing the SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 requirements (hardware, software, and migration), comparing them to your current deployment, and developing a plan for how to get your SAS content—your data and configuration—integrated into a SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 system.

Download your software order. In the SAS Software Depot that contains your order, run the SAS Migration Utility to generate a migration analysis report. Using this report, you can analyze every machine in your current SAS Visual Analytics deployment to answer these crucial design questions: The SAS Software Depot contains SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 software that you deploy in a later step.

For more information, see Designing Your Migration.

During the pre-migration task phase, using the SAS Migration Utility, you create a migration package that contains your current SAS data and configuration. In a later step, the SAS Deployment Wizard uses your migration package as input to move your earlier SAS content successfully to SAS Visual Analytics 7.4.

For more information, see Performing Pre-migration Tasks.

Follow the steps in the topic, “Updating the SAS High-Performance Analytics Infrastructure” in the SAS High-Performance Analytics Infrastructure: Installation and Configuration Guide.

In step four, you use the SAS Deployment Wizard to install SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 and to migrate your current SAS content and configuration that you packaged using the SAS Migration Utility in step three. During your deployment wizard session, you select the migration option.

For more information, see Deploying SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 and Migrating Your Content.

Step five consists of performing any required manual tasks to complete your migration.

For more information, see Performing Post-Migration Tasks.

An important final step in migration is validating that your SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 servers, clients, middle tier, and web clients are functioning and can use migrated content from your earlier SAS Visual Analytics release.

For a discussion of functionality changes in SAS Visual Analytics 7.4, see the SAS Guide to Software Updates.

For more information, see the Validating Your Migrated Deployment.