What's New Table of Contents |
What's New for SAS Data Integration Studio 3.4
Overview
SAS Data Integration Studio 3.4 includes the following new features and enhancements:
- enhanced import and export of SAS Metadata
- enhanced copy and paste of SAS Metadata
- enhanced SQL processing
- enhanced table loading
- better management of transformation output
- new support for Web services
- new support for message queues
- new support for dynamic cluster tables
- enhanced support for XML libraries and tables
- enhanced View Data window
- enhanced impact analysis
Enhanced Import and Export of SAS Metadata
New wizards are provided for the import and export of metadata in SAS Open Metadata Architecture format. You can import and export metadata repositories, folders of metadata objects, or one or more selected metadata objects.
The new import and export wizards enable you to do the following:
- import and export data as well as the metadata for physical tables and external files
- rename imported data tables or data files and change their physical locations
- import and export dependent objects that are associated with a parent object, such as the inner job that is nested within an iterative job, or an external format file for an external file
- include access controls for a package of imported or exported objects
- import tables from multiple libraries and connect them to the same libraries or to different libraries
- import a library that is assigned to one server and reassign the library to another server
- import a SAS library and change it to a database library, and vice versa.
The features for the import and export of metadata in formats other than SAS Open Metadata Architecture format are unchanged.
Enhanced Copy and Paste of SAS Metadata
SAS Data Integration Studio provides the following menu options for copy and paste operations:
- Copy
- builds a list of metadata to be copied.
- Paste
- copies and pastes selected metadata.
- Paste Special
- enables you to select what attributes are copied and to change some attributes in the pasted object. Paste Special has features similar to the new metadata Import Wizard.
Enhanced SQL Processing
A new SQL Join transformation enables you to create SQL queries that run in the context of SAS Data Integration Studio jobs. The transformation features a graphical interface that provides a consistent and intuitive setting for building the statements and clauses that constitute queries. The transformation supports the PROC SQL syntax of Create table/view <table> AS <query expression> and accommodates up to 256 tables in a single query. The SELECT statement supports tables being joined to themselves. It also supports subqueries; the CASE expression; and WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, and ORDER BY clauses. Finally, the current version of the SQL Join transformation inserts a comment into the generated code for queries that states that the code was generated by version 2 of the transformation. This comment distinguishes the code from the code that is generated by the earlier version of the SQL Join transformation.
The process of building the SQL query is performed on the Designer tab. The tab contains sections that are designed to simplify creating the SQL query and configuring its parts. It is also easier to set options that optimize join performance.
Enhanced Table Loading
SAS Data Integration Studio has improved the way it loads tables in a process flow.
A new Table Loader transformation provides more load options and more combinations of load options. New capabilities include the following:
- In addition to the Update-and-Insert method that was available before, you can select Update only, or Insert only.
- You are no longer limited to SQL Insert for new records (after finding the matching). You can use the APPEND procedure instead.
- SQL Update now has "ignore blanks" options that are similar to those for SQL Modify in previous releases.
- For SAS tables and for some database tables, indexes and constraints can be revised without having to re-create a table.
- For SAS tables and for some database tables, indexes and constraints can be dropped or added before or after a load. For example, Job 1 can load Table A without an index, and Job 2 can load the same Table A with an index.
- Index dropping is available for all update methods, not just the APPEND procedure. If an index is needed for the update method, that index will not be dropped.
Better Management of Transformation Output
You can now create flows in which transformations can write directly to a persistent data store, without having to write to a temporary output table first. Also, temporary output tables are now visible in the process flow. Having a separate metadata object for each temporary output makes it easier to manage the data and metadata for these tables. You can view the data for a temporary table and update its metadata as easily as you can for a persistent data store.
New Support for Web Services
A Web service is an interface that enables communication between distributed applications, even if the applications are written in different programming languages or are running on different operating systems.
In SAS Data Integration Studio, administrators can select a job in the Inventory tree or the Custom tree and deploy the job as a Web service. After a job has been deployed in this way, any Web service client, such as a .NET application, can execute the job.
You might want to deploy a job as a Web service when the job must be accessed across platforms, when the amount of data to be input and output is not large, and when any input from or output to the Web service client can be formatted as XML tables.
New Support for Message Queues
A message queue is a guaranteed message delivery mechanism for handling data sharing in a user-defined format. There are several widely used messaging technologies currently available. The format of the message content can be completely user defined, or it can be a format that has been commonly accepted for a particular industry segment.
SAS Data Integration Studio provides transformations for WebSphere MQ message queues and Microsoft MQ message queues. Unlike other transformations, the message queue transformations can handle binary files and unstructured data, such as text.
New Support for Dynamic Cluster Tables
A dynamic cluster table is two or more SAS SPD Server tables that are virtually concatenated into a single entity, using metadata that is managed by the SAS SPD Server. Dynamic cluster tables can be used as the inputs or outputs in SAS Data Integration Studio jobs.
Data that is stored in dynamic cluster tables can be loaded and processed in parallel. Dynamic cluster tables provide the flexibility to add new data to or to remove historical data from the clustered table by working with the metadata for the cluster without affecting underlying tables. This capability reduces the time needed to complete the job.
Three new transformations enable you to manage dynamic cluster tables.
Enhanced Support for XML Libraries and Tables
XML tables can be used as the inputs or outputs in SAS Data Integration Studio jobs. A new XML source designer is the preferred method for registering XML files in a metadata repository.
The XML source designer uses a SAS XML library to access XML files.
A new XML Writer transformation is required to create a target table in XML format.
Enhanced View Data Window
The View Data window enables you to edit and create tables, as well as view them. It also has better search and navigation features.
Enhanced Impact Analysis
Impact analysis identifies the tables or columns, jobs, and transformations that would be affected by a change in a selected table or column. The following enhancements have been made to impact analysis and reverse impact analysis in SAS Data Integration Studio:
- Analysis continues into dependent metadata repositories. For example, if a table in a Foundation repository is used as an input to a table in a Custom repository, impact analysis will trace from the Foundation table to the Custom table.
- You can open tables and external files in the View Data window, both on the Report tab and the Graph tab.
- You can open external files in the View File window, both on the Report tab and the Graph tab.
- Impacts are now traced through information maps, SAS Enterprise Guide projects, the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office objects, and message queues.