What's New in SAS 9.3 BI Web Services
Overview
SAS 9.3 BI Web Services
introduce several new features for programmers that make it easier
to consume SAS Stored Processes using popular Web service protocols.
New features include support for new transport types, integration
with SAS 9.3 Stored Process features, more management capabilities,
an engine rewrite for speedier execution and more comprehensive extensions,
and a feature that eliminates the need to use the
Deploy
as Web Service wizard in SAS Management Console to create
new generated Web services by exposing stored processes for dynamic
execution. In addition, SAS BI Web Services for .NET has been discontinued
in SAS 9.3.
General Enhancements
The following general
enhancements have been added to SAS BI Web Services:
-
The SAS BI Web Services for Java
engine has been rewritten to use the Spring Framework. This new engine
is backwards compatible with SAS 9.2 generated Web services and the
XMLA Web service. You can continue to use any existing client proxy
code when invoking migrated SAS 9.2 generated Web services and XMLA
proxies should continue to work as they did in SAS 9.2.
-
You no longer need to generate
Web services using the
Deploy as a Web Service wizard in SAS Management Console. As soon as you create a SAS Stored
Process, it is available for execution by SAS BI Web Services. You
can continue to generate Web services to group multiple stored processes
under one endpoint or to publish the intent that these stored processes
are to be executed by Web service clients.
-
SAS BI Web Services for .NET has
been discontinued. SAS BI Web Services for Java will support migrated
.NET 9.2 generated Web services in a way that is transparent for clients.
In fact, clients should need only to change endpoint addresses (and
this step can be omitted if a proxy server is used).
For more information, see Migrating SAS BI Web Services for .NET to SAS BI Web Services for Java.
SAS Stored Process Enhancements
The following stored
process enhancements have been added to SAS BI Web Services:
-
The SAS Workspace Server supports
stored processes with output parameters and stored processes with
streaming output, except stored processes that use sessions.
-
Data tables can be specified as
data sources and data targets. Data tables are similar to traditional
data sources and targets, but they eliminate the need for stored process
authors to hardcode LIBNAME statements in SAS code. Also, data tables
enable stored process authors to specify a template table. This template
table is used to automatically generate schema for the table in SAS
BI Web Service WSDLs.
Transport Type Additions
SAS BI Web Services
has always provided SOAP endpoints for XMLA and generated Web services.
SOAP is widely used in enterprise scenarios because of the set of
WS-* standards available for the protocol, for its use of a Web Service
Description Language (WSDL) files, and for its structured and namespaced
messages. However, sometimes SOAP is overkill. Many mobile client
development libraries lack native SOAP libraries and Web applications
typically use client-side asynchronous JavaScript remoting calls where
SOAP is not appropriate. Therefore, SAS 9.3 BI Web Services supports
plain XML and JSON as transport types.
For more information, see Using JSON and Plain XML with RESTful Web Services.
Copyright © SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.