Setting up Workspace Pooling

A workspace pool is a group of workspaces that are created and ready for use on one or more servers. Workspace pooling improves the efficiency of connections between clients and servers because clients use the workspaces only when needed to process a transaction. Without pooling, a workspace must be created for each client connection and remain available for that connection, regardless of the client's level of activity. These dedicated workspaces consume resources that are then unavailable for future connections.

An authorized application (such as the SAS Information Delivery Portal), which will be referred to here as the pool administrator, runs and controls access to the pool. The pool administrator uses its credentials to connect and authenticate itself to the LDAP directory, giving it authorization to create workspaces. The method that the pool administrator uses to authorize clients to use workspaces depends upon whether the pool is set up for exclusive use by a single client or shared access by many clients.

If a pool is set up for use by a single client, the client uses its own credentials to access the SAS server and SAS login definitions the client is allowed to see. The client can then use attributes on these objects to create a workspace or a pool of workspaces. This scenario is useful for development environments.

If the pool is to be used be many different clients, two main problems arise:

• Workspaces may need to be created before the clients are known
• Workspaces created with one client's login may be accessible by other clients

To ensure security, the pool administrator must have some method of verifying authorization. The method provided with the Integration Technologies Administrator is the use of the Client DN attribute on the SAS login. When the pool administrator issues the request for the workspace, it includes the client's distinguished name as part of the request. The request is accepted only if the client's distinguished name either exactly matches the Client DN attribute or is a member of a group specified in the Client DN attribute. Regardless of the method used, when the client has been authorized to the pool administrator, the administrator uses the pool manager to allocate a workspace from the pool to the client. When the client is finished with the workspace, it releases the workspace to return to the pool, where it is then available for other clients.

A workspace pool consists of a SAS login and one or more SAS servers that have a common

• Base distinguished name
• Logical name
• Domain name

In addition, the servers must all be accessible under the same access credentials.

To create a workspace pool, follow these steps:

1. Display or create the definitions for the SAS servers that will host the workspaces in the pool.

2. Select the Workspace Pool tab. In the Maximum Workspaces per Workspace Pool field, enter the maximum number of workspaces that you want to allocate to each workspace pool on that server. Factors you should consider when determining a value for this field include the number and type of processors on the machine, the amount of memory present, the type of clients that will be requesting workspaces, and the number of different pools the server participates in.

   In the Recycle Activation Limit field, specify the number of times a server is used before the process is disposed of and a new process is used in pooling. A value of 0 indicates that the process will have no limit. The default value is 10.

   In the Server Process Shutdown pane, specify whether an idle server should be shut down or remain running (including the number of minutes before the server shuts down).

3. Display or create a definition for a SAS login to access the server. This login will supply the credentials necessary to connect to the workspace pool. On the SAS login definition, specify the following:

   • Domain name: The domain name must be the same as that specified on the definition for the SAS server that contains the workspace pool.
   • Logical name: The logical name on the SAS login definition must be the same as the logical name on the definition for the SAS server.
   • Client DN: The pool administrator may supply the client's distinguished name as part of its request for a workspace. The request will be granted only if the client's distinguished name either
     • Matches exactly the Client DN for the pool, specified in this field
     • Is a member of the group whose distinguished name is specified in this field
     This field is optional.
   • Min Workspace Size: The minimum number of workspaces (total of active and idle) that should be present in the pool at any time. Note that the workspaces may be distributed among several SAS servers. This value cannot exceed the total of the Maximum Workspaces per Pool for all the servers with which this login can connect. This field is optional.
   • Min Available Workspaces: The minimum number of workspaces that should be idle and available in the pool at any time. As with the Min Workspace Size field, this value cannot exceed the total of the Maximum Workspaces per Pool for all the servers with which this login can connect. This field is optional.