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What's New Table of Contents

What's New in SAS Open Metadata Architecture 9.0, 9.1, 9.1.2, and 9.1.3

Overview

SAS®9 enhances your ability to store, manage, and use metadata by implementing SAS Open Metadata Architecture. SAS Open Metadata Architecture 9.0 (and later) provides a framework for creating and managing metadata and applications that use metadata. This enables separate applications to share metadata. The metadata architecture also saves development effort because applications do not have to implement their own metadata facilities.

Note:

• This section describes the features of SAS Open Metadata Architecture that are new or enhanced since 9.0.

• z/OS is the successor to the OS/390 operating system. SAS Open Metadata Architecture 9.0 (and later) is supported on both OS/390 and z/OS operating systems and, throughout this document, any reference to z/OS also applies to OS/390, unless otherwise stated.

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Details

Components of SAS®9 Open Metadata Architecture

SAS®9 Open Metadata Architecture enables you to set up a metadata server, create metadata repositories, and write applications (clients) that store, use, or manage the metadata. The following components are part of the framework:

• SAS Metadata Repository is a collection of related metadata objects that describe enterprise data resources.
• SAS Metadata Server is a multi-user server that makes metadata available from one or more SAS Metadata Repositories. The metadata server is supported by SAS Integration Technologies, which is required in order to use SAS Open Metadata Architecture.
• The SAS Open Metadata Interface and SAS Java Metadata Interface are application programming interfaces (APIs) for interacting with the SAS Metadata Server. SAS 9.0 (and later) clients use these APIs to deliver metadata services.
• The SAS Metadata Model comprises many metadata types that define the information that you store in metadata repositories for a variety of enterprise needs, such as storing LIBNAME statements, DBMS schemas, data mining, OLAP information, transformations, servers, and much more.
• The SAS Open Metadata Architecture Authorization Facility is a subsystem of the metadata server that returns authorization decisions based on access controls that are in the metadata. The facility is used to control access to metadata objects on the metadata server. It can also be used to control access and the actions that can be performed on resources that the metadata objects describe.

Documentation for SAS Open Metadata Architecture components is available in the following titles in SAS Help and Documentation and SAS OnlineDoc: Getting Started with the SAS Open Metadata Interface, SAS Open Metadata Interface: Reference, SAS Open Metadata Interface: User's Guide, SAS Java Metadata Interface: User's Guide, SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide, and SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

Clients of SAS®9 Open Metadata Architecture

SAS®99 ships multiple SAS Open Metadata Architecture clients that use the metadata model and API. These clients facilitate managing and using metadata repositories and accessing metadata by using the metadata server. The following software components are clients of the SAS Open Metadata Architecture:

• SAS Management Console, which is a new standardized interface for managing various SAS resources, including metadata. SAS Management Console also uses metadata to manage those resources. The Metadata Manager plug-in facilitates tasks such as creating and managing repositories and controlling the metadata server. The User Manager plug-in enables you to register users and groups on the metadata server and manage their registrations. The Authorization Manager plug-in enables you to define access controls to SAS Metadata Repositories and to individual metadata within a repository.
• A SAS language metadata interface that enables you to manage metadata from within SAS. This interface includes the following elements:
  • the METAOPERATE and METADATA procedures, which enable you to control the metadata server and issue SAS Open Metadata Interface method calls from within SAS
  • the METABROWSE and METAFIND commands (new in SAS 9.1), which enable you to browse and search for specific metadata in SAS Metadata Repositories
  • the METACON command (new in SAS 9.1), which enables you to manage server connections
  • portable SAS system options, which enable you to specify default server connection parameters and repository settings for your SAS session
  • a family of SAS metadata DATA step functions (new in SAS 9.1), which enable you to get, set, and update the properties of SAS metadata objects in a DATA step program
  • the metadata LIBNAME engine that, along with your SAS engine, stores and builds LIBNAME statements using information in SAS metadata repositories.

Other SAS products and solutions that are clients of the SAS Open Metadata Architecture include SAS Data Integration Studio, SAS Information Delivery Portal, SAS Information Map Studio, SAS OLAP Cube Studio, SAS Web Report Studio, and SAS Marketing Automation.

Documentation for SAS Open Metadata Architecture clients is available in SAS Help and Documentation, SAS OnlineDoc, and in the Help that is delivered with the client software.

Enhanced User Support

Beginning with SAS 9.1, the SAS Metadata Server supports an unrestricted user, administrative users, and trusted users. These special users can perform tasks that cannot be performed by other users. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

Support for ARM Logging

Beginning with SAS 9.1, the SAS Metadata Server supports ARM logging. Application Response Measurement (ARM) is a standard for managing distributed application performance. The ARM_OMA subsystem records transaction start-and-stop times that can be used to develop timing statistics for server performance testing. ARM_OMA logging (which is optional) is invoked by passing ARM-related system options in the command that starts the metadata server. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

Repository Auditing

Beginning with SAS 9.1, the SAS Metadata Server gives you the option to save information about changes to a repository in a set of audit files. The information in the audit files can be used to restore the metadata in a repository to a previous state. Auditing is performed on individual repositories and is invoked in SAS Management Console after a repository is created. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

Importing and Exporting Metadata

Beginning with SAS 9.1, wizards were added to SAS Management Console that enable metadata administrators to import and export metadata to and from other metadata models. By default, the wizards use the Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) format. In addition, you can add import and export formats by installing the Model Bridge software from Meta Integration. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

Repositories Created for External DBMS

Beginning with SAS 9.1, when the appropriate SAS/ACCESS software is installed, administrators can create repositories in Oracle or in DB2 from IBM by specifying an engine and library and engine connection options when a repository is created. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

New Macros

The following macros for use by metadata administrators are new in SAS 9.1, 9.1.2, or 9.1.3:

%OMABAKUP autocall macro (9.1)

automates the metadata server backup process.

%MDUIMPC and %MDUIMPL autocall macros (9.1)

import user and group information from enterprise data sources to the metadata server. Before you can use these macros, you must extract the necessary user and group information from existing stores.

%OMAPORT autocall macro (9.1.2)

ports a SAS Metadata Repository that is created in one host environment to another host environment.

%OMARUNAN autocall macro (9.1.3)

optimizes the memory footprint of SAS Metadata Repositories by eliminating unnecessary indexes, storing long character variables as varying length strings, and removing duplicate copies of strings in repository data sets. %OMARUNAN replaces the %OMAOPTMZ macro that was provided in SAS 9.1. %OMARUNAN is preferred to %OMAOPTMZ because it analyzes all repositories at once, instead of one repository at a time, and operates on existing backups of SAS Metadata Repositories instead of making an additional copy of repositories.

The %OMABAKUP, %OMARUNAN and %OMAPORT macros are described in more detail in the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide. The %MDUIMPC and %MDUIMPL macros are described in the SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

Increased Security for SASUSERS and PUBLIC Groups

Beginning with SAS 9.1.2, the SAS Open Metadata Architecture Authorization Facility no longer allows anyone, including the unrestricted user, to modify or delete the SASUSERS and PUBLIC groups. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

Sample User Import Applications

Beginning with SAS 9.1.2, two sample applications are provided that metadata administrators can modify to extract user and group information from enterprise data sources and create identity metadata in a SAS Metadata Repository. The application importad.sas extracts user information from Microsoft Active Directory domain controller files. The application importpw.sas extracts user information from UNIX /etc/passwd files. After the information is extracted, the applications use the %MDUIMPC and %MDUIMPL macros to read the information into the appropriate format and load it into a SAS Metadata Repository. These applications are available in the SAS Sample Library. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

Workunit Journaling

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3, the SAS Metadata Server supports new omaconfig.xml options that enable administrators to configure the metadata server to write metadata updates to a high-speed workunit journal file prior to updating repositories on disk. Workunit journaling improves performance on multiprocessor metadata servers and also improves the metadata server's recovery ability by maintaining a copy of all uncommitted updates. For information about the workunit journaling options, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

Expanded Search Capability

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3, the <XMLSelect> search element in the SAS Open Metadata Interface supports the comparison operator =: (an equal sign with a colon modifier). This operator compares only the specified prefix in a character string. For more information, see the section "Filtering a GetMetadataObjects Request" under "Querying All Metadata of a Specified Type" in the SAS Open Metadata Interface: User's Guide.

Ability to Reclaim Unused Disk Space

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 2, the metadata server backup macro, %OMABAKUP, supports a REORG option that reclaims unused disk space from SAS Metadata Repositories. The %OMABAKUP macro also converts special characters that are not supported in directory names by the host environment to underscores. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

Additional Server Startup Options and New Best Practices Recommendation for MAXACTIVETHREADS

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3, two additional objectserverparms options can be set in the SAS Metadata Server start command to improve server performance. The options, THREADSMIN (TMIN) and THREADSMAX (TMAX), control the minimum and maximum number of threads that are allowed in the SAS Metadata Server's thread pool. A thread is a channel that is available for handling user requests. A thread pool defines the number of threads that are available to a server, regardless of the number of user requests that are made. When these options are set, the number of available threads is not allowed to fall below TMIN or to exceed TMAX.

The optimum values for TMIN and TMAX are dependent on the setting of the MAXACTIVETHREADS metadata server configuration option. MAXACTIVETHREADS, which is set in the metadata server's omaconfig.xml file, specifies the maximum number of threads that are allowed to run concurrently on the metadata server. There are new best-practices recommendations for MAXACTIVETHREADS with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 as well. For information about the new recommendations, and to better understand how the metadata server uses threads, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

The SAS Configuration Wizard does not set TMIN and TMAX for you. To take advantage of the performance gains that are available with these options, edit the metadata server start command file and add the options manually. If you performed a planned SAS installation, this file is located in a MetadataServer .bat or script file in C:\SAS\name_of_plan.xml\Lev1\SASMain\MetadataServer. Information about the content of the metadata server start command and where TMIN and TMAX are specified is also in the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

PHYSICAL_DELETE Server Configuration Option Deprecated

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3, the reserved omaconfig.xml option, PHYSICAL_DELETE, is deprecated.

SAS Open Metadata Interface Enhancements

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3, the SAS Open Metadata Interface Status method supports <PlatformVersion/> and <ModelVersion/> parameters. These parameters enable clients to retrieve the SAS Metadata Server and SAS Metadata Model version numbers, respectively. For more information, see the Status method in the IServer class in SAS Open Metadata Interface: Reference.

The CheckinMetadata method is also modified. The method no longer restricts the number of characters that can be entered in the changeDesc parameter. The changeDesc parameter enables clients to include a description of object modifications with the Change metadata that is automatically generated by the check-in process. Information that is entered in changeDesc used to be stored as a Change object attribute but now is stored in a TextStore object. For more information, see the CheckinMetadata method in the IOMI class in SAS Open Metadata Interface: Reference.

SAS Java Metadata Interface Enhancement

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3, a getPlatformVersion() method has been added to the SAS Java Metadata Interface. For more information, see the SAS Java Metadata Interface API specification at support.sas.com/rnd/gendoc/bi/api/. The getPlatformVersion() method is in the MetadataWorkspace class.

New SAS Language Interface for Metadata

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3, the METALIB procedure is available to automate the creation and maintenance of the table metadata defined for a SAS library. For more information, see the METALIB procedure in SAS Open Metadata Interface: Reference.

Automated Restore of the Metadata Server

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4, the SAS Metadata Server backup macro, %OMABAKUP, supports automated restore of the SAS Metadata Server by setting a RESTORE option. In addition, a new REPOSITORYLIST option is available that permits selective backup and restore of SAS Metadata Repositories. For more information, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

Repository Analysis Option Added to %OMABAKUP

Beginning with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4, the %OMABAKUP macro supports a new RUNANALYSIS option. The RUNANALYSIS option executes the %OMARUNAN macro to analyze and optimize the memory footprint of SAS Metadata Repositories immediately after the backup copies of repositories are made. The option is provided to give administrators the choice of analyzing repositories as part of the backup process or of executing %OMARUNAN independently. For information about the RUNANALYSIS option, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.