Overview of SAS BI Web Services

What Are SAS BI Web Services?

A Web service is an interface that enables communication between distributed applications. Web services enable cross-platform integration by enabling applications that are written in various programming languages to communicate by using a standard Web-based protocol, typically the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). This functionality makes it possible for businesses to bridge the gaps between different applications and systems.

There are two implementations of SAS BI Web Services: one written in Java that requires a servlet container, and another written in C# that uses the .NET framework. For information about the differences between SAS BI Web Services for .NET and SAS BI Web Services for Java, see Deciding Between .NET and Java.

The following figure shows how Web services work.

Web Services Communications

[Web Services Communications]

A client, such as a Web application or desktop application, obtains the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) from the Web service. The WSDL describes the methods that are available, the endpoint (where to call the Web service), and the format of the XML that is required to call the Web service.

Web service clients and servers transport XML data by using a data envelope that is called a SOAP envelope. Any client that can send and receive SOAP messages can access Web services. SAS supports SOAP bindings over HTTP. The client sends XML requests and parameters in a SOAP envelope to the Web service, which tells the Web service to either discover or execute stored processes.

Discover and Execute are the two methods that are specified for XMLA. The Discover method consists of middle-tier code that calls the SAS Metadata Server to get the requested metadata. The Execute method consists of middle-tier code that calls the SAS Stored Process Server to invoke stored processes.

The stored process that is requested is executed by a SAS Stored Process Server. Usually any number of simple string parameters are passed to the stored process, and a stream of XML data is returned. The input parameters to the stored process can be nothing or a combination of simple string parameters and any number of XML streams.

Before SAS 9.2, you could write XML for Analysis (XMLA) Web services only. Starting with SAS 9.2, you can use SAS Management Console to deploy a set of stored processes as a generated Web service. For more information, see What Are Generated Web Services?.

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