Overview of SAS/Warehouse Administrator

What Is SAS/Warehouse Administrator?

SAS/Warehouse Administrator is an application that provides a visual environment for managing data warehouses. Using the windows in this application, you can specify metadata that defines data sources, data stores, code libraries, and other warehouse resources. SAS/Warehouse Administrator then uses this metadata to generate or retrieve the code that extracts, transforms, and loads the data into your warehouse.

Through its metadata, SAS/Warehouse Administrator provides a single point of control for managing

data sources, on any platform accessible to SAS, in any format accessible to SAS
data stores, on any platform accessible to SAS, in any format accessible to SAS
Process Flows, which define how data moves from sources to targets
source code generated by SAS/Warehouse Administrator
user-written source code retrieved from code libraries
Jobs, which execute the code that moves data from sources to targets.

SAS/Warehouse Administrator also provides

a Process Library, which contains routines that can be included in the Process Flows for data stores in your warehouse. For example, there are routines that standardize addresses, and there are routines that generate the code required to load a warehouse table into a DBMS, such as Oracle, using native loading software.
Metadata Exporters, which export SAS/Warehouse Administrator metadata to other applications.
a Metadata API, which enables you to write client applications that read or write SAS/Warehouse Administrator metadata.

You can also download SAS/Warehouse Administrator tools and utilities from the SAS Web site. Here are a few examples:

Add-in tools that generate the metadata for a table by reading a data model, or that trace the impact of a change in a warehouse data store.
The MetaSpace Explorer, which is a Java applet that enables you to browse metadata that has been exported by SAS/Warehouse Administrator.
Publish and Subscribe add-ins that enable SAS/Warehouse Administrator to publish a package of information whenever a Subject or similar group is updated. You can now publish a package of information
- directly to email account(s)
- directly to message queue(s)
- to subscribers of one or more channels (associated with a warehouse object or explicitly specified with the defined package add-in)
- to an archive directory (useful with for historical snapshots).

For details about many of the features previously described, see the online help. To view the online help for these features, from the left panel of the SAS Help window, select Help on SAS Software Products, then SAS/Warehouse Administrator, then Using SAS/Warehouse Administrator, then Overview, then Overview of SAS/Warehouse Administrator.

Managing through Metadata

Metadata is a definition or description of data. The physical metadata for a table might specify a certain number of rows and columns, with certain transformations applied to some of the columns. The business metadata for a table might describe the purpose of the table and contact information for the person who is responsible for the accuracy of the information in the table.

SAS/Warehouse Administrator uses the metadata that you enter to generate or retrieve the code that creates your data warehouse. This metadata-driven approach might seem inefficient when compared to writing a program to perform a given task. However, SAS/Warehouse Administrator offers the following advantages over writing and managing individual programs:

a single point of control for managing data warehouse resources because the resources are defined in SAS/Warehouse Administrator metadata.
a consistent and documented flow of information across computing platforms.
because the data flows are documented, you can trace information from its source through the entire data warehouse. Documentation also makes it easier to analyze and improve data flows, resulting in better data quality.
metadata can be used to automate many tasks. For example, if you have entered the appropriate metadata, you can have SAS/Warehouse Administrator generate the code to create and load a data store. If you have entered the appropriate metadata, you can use the Impact Analysis add-in to trace the impact of a proposed change to a data store.
metadata can be used as a "view" on the data warehouse. For example, you can export the metadata for a data warehouse and make it available to business analysts, who might need to answer questions, such as What is the origin of the data in this report? What does this column mean? How is it derived?.

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