Enhancements to SAS® Business Intelligence, SAS® Data Integration, and Other Metadata-Based Software
SAS 9.2 brings SAS Business intelligence, SAS Data Integration, and other metadata-based software to a substantially higher level of usability, scalability, and integration with the IT infrastructure.
The new SAS Deployment Wizard automatically configures all of your SAS servers. It can also configure your Web server and deploy the SAS Web applications if you choose this option. The number of manual configuration steps has been greatly reduced, as well as the number of user accounts.
Management of SAS servers is improved through a new logging framework, a new management interface in SAS Management Console, and integration with industry-standard monitoring software. Security features have also been enhanced to be more robust and IT-friendly.
All of the business intelligence clients have been updated to make users more productive, with features such as context-sensitive menus and dynamic prompts.
Use the following links to read more about these and other enhancements.
Architectural Enhancements in SAS 9.2
SAS 9.2 metadata-based software includes the following architectural enhancements and improvements to interoperability and scalability:The new SAS Pooled Workspace Server, which uses a new feature called server-side pooling. In this configuration, the SAS object spawner maintains a collection of workspace server processes that are available for clients. Applications such as SAS Information Map Studio, SAS Web Report Studio, and the SAS Information Delivery Portal use this server by default to query relational information maps.
Increased grid enablement. Support has been added for DataSynapse GridServer and Univa UD Grid MP as grid middleware providers.
Changes to metadata repositories. Custom repositories are now supported by all applications. In addition, it is no longer necessary to define dependencies between repositories. If a repository dependency was defined in SAS 9.1.3, the dependency is eliminated. All existing associations between metadata objects remain in effect.
Greater use of enterprise Web application server capabilities on the middle tier, resulting in higher throughput and more opportunities for scaling.
The new SAS Web Infrastructure Platform, which provides basic services and applications that are used by all Web applications. Components that were previously part of the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit, including the SAS Services Application and the SAS Stored Process Web Application, are now part of the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform and are used by all Web applications. This provides more consistency in functionality and administration. The SAS Web Infrastructure Kit no longer exists.
The new SAS Content Server, which stores WebDAV-accessible content. This content includes report definitions that are created in SAS Web Report Studio, images and other elements that are used in reports, and documents and other files that are to be displayed in the SAS Information Delivery Portal or in SAS solutions. The server is managed through the new SAS Web Administration Console.
System Management Features in SAS 9.2
For configurations that use a metadata server, new system management features in SAS 9.2 provide more centralized control of your SAS environment and better integration with your IT infrastructure. The new features include the following:A new logging framework for SAS servers. Logs can be sent to a variety of destinations, including files, operating system facilities, and client applications. For each destination, you can configure a message layout, filters, and other parameters. The framework supports security auditing by logging authentication events, client connections, changes to user and group information, and permission changes. Performance-related log events can be also generated for processing by an Application Response Measurement (ARM) 4.0 server.
New server management features in SAS Management Console. These features enable you to remotely quiesce, stop, pause, resume, and validate SAS servers, as well as view and manage server connections and processes. You can now view the contents of server logs in SAS Management Console, and dynamically change logging levels from the console without restarting servers.
Integration with third-party system management tools. Your IT staff can now monitor SAS servers along with other critical servers through tools such as BMC Performance Manager, HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, and Microsoft Office Manager Server.
A new interface called SAS Deployment Manager. This interface enables you to automatically update service account passwords in metadata. You can also use it to rebuild SAS Web applications, or to remove configuration information for one or more components of your installation.
A new Web-based interface called SAS Web Administration Console. You can use this interface to monitor which users are logged on to SAS Web applications, to manage folders and permissions in the SAS Content Server, and to view the current configuration of Web applications.
The new SAS Configuration Manager in SAS Management Console. You can use this plug-in to change settings or specify property names and values for Web applications including the SAS Information Delivery Portal, SAS Web Report Studio, and SAS BI Dashboard. You can also use it to manage logging configurations for Web applications.
Centralized management of themes. You can now customize SAS themes in a single place and then configure the Web applications to use the themes that you customize.
Security Features in SAS 9.2
For configurations that use a metadata server, SAS 9.2 provides more robust and more easily managed security through the following enhancements:Expanded support for roles. With roles, you can manage the availability of application features such as menu items, plug-ins, and buttons. This support is available in the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Management Console, SAS Web Report Studio, and other applications. For administrators, roles are provided for unrestricted access to metadata, metadata server operation, and user administration.
Simplified inheritance of permissions. For most items, access control inheritance flows through the SAS folders tree (and can cross repository boundaries as needed). Each schema, cube, library, and table inherits permissions from only its parent folder. Inheritance from application servers, libraries, OLAP schemas, DBMS servers, and DBMS schemas has been discontinued. The new authorization interface always displays effective permissions. It also enables unrestricted users to trace an item's inheritance and look up users' permissions to the item.
A new metadata server option that prevents passwords from being stored on client machines. When this option is activated, users are always prompted for passwords when they launch a client application. In addition, an industry-standard algorithm (AES fixed key) is now used by default to encrypt passwords in metadata. If you don't have SAS/SECURE software, SASProprietary encoding is used instead.
A new type of user account that exists only in metadata. These accounts, called internal accounts, are used primarily to connect to the metadata server. This feature minimizes the need to create external accounts for service identities.
SAS token authentication. This feature enables users who have been authenticated by the metadata server to access most other SAS servers without being prompted again for credentials.
Support for Integrated Windows authentication. If you implement this option, users do not receive a logon prompt when they launch desktop applications such as SAS Data Integration Studio, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Information Map Studio, SAS Management Console, and SAS OLAP Cube Studio. The client and the metadata server must be in the same Windows domain or in domains that trust each other.
Better integration with third-party products on the middle tier. Web authentication is now supported for JBoss, Oracle WebLogic, and IBM WebSphere, and all Web authentication occurs through a central authentication service. Interaction with WebSeal and SiteMinder is supported. In addition, you can configure client certification for one-way and two-way SSL authentication.
A faster process for importing user identity information. You can now load this information into the metadata in blocks by using the MDUIMPLB and MDUCHGLB macros. (The corresponding macros from the previous release are still supported.)
Accessing and Managing Your Data in SAS 9.2
SAS 9.2 includes the following new features for accessing and managing your organization's data:New DataFlux software added to SAS Data Integration Server and SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server. Both of these offerings include dfPower Profile, with which you can execute a complete assessment of your organization's data. SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server includes dfPower Explorer, which you can use to analyze metadata from existing data sources. It also includes a version of DataFlux Integration Server specifically for use with SAS. You can visually design data quality workflows using dfPower Studio, and then call those workflows from within SAS Data Integration Studio using new drag-and-drop data quality transformations.
You can now register Netezza and Neoview tables and include them in SAS Data Integration Studio jobs. In addition, a fast technique for change data capture (CDC) now reads changes for Oracle, IBM DB2, and Attunity data. You can also create custom data formats for change data capture.
SAS 9.2 includes new data surveyors for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. In previous releases, SAS integrated data from these systems by accessing the underlying database with SAS/ACCESS software. In this release, SAS has partnered with Composite Software to provide data integration with ERP and CRM systems from PeopleSoft, Oracle Applications, Siebel, and Salesforce.com. These new data surveyors use the vendor API and certified interfaces, and they comply with the security of the application.
Client Applications in SAS 9.2
The client applications in SAS 9.2 include many enhancements that increase productivity, improve consistency and manageability, and provide better security. The following enhancements are common to most SAS 9.2 client applications:Expanded support for roles. With roles, you can manage the availability of application features such as menu items, plug-ins, and buttons. This support is available in the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Management Console, SAS Web Report Studio, and other applications.
Simplified management of profiles for connecting to the metadata server. Profiles are more consistent and are easier to add, modify, and delete. Users now connect to the server rather than to a metadata repository. Administrators can now control whether users are able to save passwords in profiles.
Consistent storage of metadata in the new SAS Folders tree. The tree appears in SAS Management Console and other client applications as applicable. Personal folders are provided for individual users. Within the overall structure, you can create a customized folder structure to meet your data sharing and security requirements.
A new prompt framework that offers greater functionality and flexibility. For relational data, prompts can be cascading and hierarchical. You can create prompts that use dynamically generated value lists, and you can establish dependencies between prompts in a filter expression. When creating prompts for a stored process, you can make them globally available for use in filters. You can also create prompts for OLAP filters.
New Export SAS Package and Import SAS Package wizards in SAS Management Console, SAS Data Integration Studio, and SAS OLAP Cube Studio. With these wizards, you can promote a larger number of object types than was possible with BI Manager. New batch import and export tools are also provided, so that you can perform promotions from a command line or using a batch script.
Use of the new SAS Pooled Workspace Server. This server uses server-side pooling, in which a collection of reusable workspace server processes is maintained, thus avoiding the overhead that is associated with creating a new process for each connection. Query and reporting tools such as SAS Web Report Studio and the SAS Information Delivery Portal use this server configuration by default to query relational information maps.
SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office
The SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office 4.2 includes the following enhancements:A new List Report Wizard. You can use this wizard to quickly create detailed and summary reports. Alternatively, you can embed reports that were created in SAS Web Report Studio into your Microsoft Office files.
Increased functionality when creating reports and graphs. When you create PivotTable reports using OLAP cube data, you can now add variables, calculated measures, and calculated members. When creating bar charts, you can now define multiple chart variables within a single group variable. Bar-line charts can now include multiple line plots, with different line statistics for each plot. ODS Statistical Graphics are now supported, as are Fisher options for Pearson or Spearman correlations.
An updated user interface. All SAS functions are displayed in logical groupings in the Microsoft Office ribbon bar for easy access. You can now preview results before they are inserted into Excel, Word, or PowerPoint, and you can restore content that you previously deleted or excluded. You can also save your settings for a specific task to a task template for later use in the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office or SAS Enterprise Guide.
SAS BI Dashboard
SAS BI Dashboard 4.2 includes the following enhancements:Powerful new functionality for users. New indicators, using Adobe Flash, enable users to traverse large amounts of detailed data interactively. For example, users can view changes in data over time by simply moving a slider. This eliminates the need to create multiple indicators for different time periods. In addition, you can now create alerts that signal changes to an indicator's value, enabling users to focus on problem areas as they occur.
Better integration with other SAS software. When you link to a SAS Web Report Studio report, the report now opens to the area of the report where the indicator value is located. You can now use filters that were defined in SAS Information Map Studio, and you can create data sources based on tables registered in metadata.
SAS Data Integration Studio
SAS Data Integration Studio 4.2 includes the following enhancements:- An updated user interface for creating and maintaining jobs. New zoom and pan features enable you to view large process flows more easily. You can use the overview pane to view the overall flow or use the details panel to view node details. Post-it notes can be added to diagrams. When a job is reopened, the layout appears in the same state as when it was last saved.
- Usability enhancements that improve the job creation process. You can use a table more than once in the same job, you can include a job within a job, and you can import your existing data management code into a job. The new undo feature enables you to reverse an action, and the redo feature enables you to reverse an undo operation.
- Enhanced mapping features. These features include intelligent handling of data type conversions, easy and selectable customized mappings, and controlled propagation of changes to mappings.
- New debugging features to use when designing and running jobs. Customized design-time diagnostics inform you about design errors as you build the process flow for a job. Run-time indicators display job progress and provide status, errors, and warnings while the job is still running. A debug toolbar includes Run, Stop, Run To/From Selected Transformation, Step, and Continue functions. You can restart jobs from any node or from the middle of a load.
- Performance monitoring capabilities that help you identify bottlenecks. You can capture and display CPU time, memory use, I/O statistics, and record counts in both tabular and graphic formats.
- Honoring of login settings for databases such as Oracle and DB2. This means that if a DBMS is configured to always prompt for user name and password, SAS Data Integration honors this setting.
SAS® Enterprise Guide®
SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 includes the following enhancements:- A significantly simplified user interface. The options on menus and toolbars now change according to the task you are performing, so that you see only the options that relate to the current task. The user interface makes it easier to specify a data source and, when doing so, to create a simple or advanced filter and specify a sort order. When creating projects, you can use new conditional nodes to define conditional logic without writing code.
- Improvements to the Query Builder. These improvements make it easier to define filters, create computed and recoded columns, and build expressions. When you join DBMS tables, PROC SQL Pass-Through statements are now validated. In addition, you can specify titles and footnotes for query output.
- Enhancements similar to those in the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. These include a new List Report Wizard, new bar chart and bar-line chart features, support for ODS Statistical Graphics, and support of Fisher options for Pearson or Spearman correlations.
- Other new functionality, including the ability to create a tile chart so that you can view a large quantity of hierarchical data in a limited space. You can also create a report of table definitions in metadata, export SAS Reports to HTML, send files to the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, download files to your computer, and upload files to a SAS server.
SAS® Enterprise MinerTM
SAS Enterprise Miner 6.1 is a major new release of data mining tools for use with SAS 9.2. The enhancements include the following:- Improvements to variable list tables. These tables now include summary statistics. In addition, when configuring variable list table displays, you can now select only the variable attributes that are important to your work.
- Greater integration with the SAS 9.2 infrastructure, including use of the SAS Folders tree to store projects and models. You can register models directly to the tree structure, and then use the Model Import node to import a registered model into a data mining process flow diagram. The score code of the imported model is applied to the data in the diagram, generating new model assessment statistics.
- A switch-targets feature that enables you to select a new dependent variable in a tree leaf and make new splits based on the new target. This is a powerful analytical feature for users who design decision trees for segmentation strategies. In addition, the Interactive Decision Tree is now fully integrated into the application and requires no separate installation or documentation.
- New File Import and LARS nodes. With the File Import node, you can directly integrate external data files into process flow diagrams. The LARS node uses Least Angle Regression and LASSO algorithms from the SAS/STAT procedure GLMSELECT to perform model fitting tasks and sophisticated variable selection for interval target models.
- Many enhancements to existing nodes. For example, the Reporter node provides new ODS functions that create document graphs, process flow diagrams, and analytical plots that match the graphics that are displayed in the user interface.
SAS Information Delivery Portal
The SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.2 includes the following enhancements:- Report editing and viewing via SAS Web Report studio. Depending on the software that has been installed, the portal uses SAS Web Report Studio instead of SAS Web Report Viewer to display reports. Reports that are displayed with SAS Web Report Studio can be edited from the portal by users who are authorized to do so.
- More control over sort order. The administrator can now specify default values for package sort order and page navigation. Users can set a preference to sort publication packages in ascending or descending order by creation date. This sort order can be overridden for specific publication channels that are in Collection portlets.
- Other enhancements, including updated navigator portlets to comply with the new SAS metadata model; elimination of the Public Kiosk to comply with a stronger security model; and a new default theme that is consistent with the theme used by other Web applications, such as SAS Web Report Studio.
SAS Information Map Studio
SAS Information Map Studio 4.2 includes the following enhancements:- A redesigned user interface. A new Resources pane provides a central location for all resources. You can now add a data source or stored process by double-clicking it, using its pop-up menu option, or dragging it to the Selected Resources pane. The new zoom feature on the tab in the main window displays more data sources in a single view. With the new auto-arrange feature, you can rearrange data sources so that they more closely resemble a star schema. An undo feature is also available.
- New features that increase productivity. With the new bulk edit feature, you can simultaneously modify multiple data items and custom properties. The new resource replacement feature enables you to replace resources that are unresolved or no longer relevant.
- Enhanced filtering features. These include the ability to hide filters from end users, select multiple (non-prompted) filters for a test query, and return the names of the user groups and roles that a requesting user belongs to. A new browse-and-search feature locates the values (or members) for a character expression, an OLAP data item, or a character data item whose value-generation method provides a dynamically generated list of values.
- Data-related enhancements. Information map tables can now be used as data sources. Data values that are hyperlink tags can now be rendered as hyperlinks in query results, and support is now available for the totaling of nonadditive expressions.
SAS OLAP Cube Studio
SAS OLAP Cube Studio 4.2 includes the following enhancements:- The ability to update and manage cubes using fewer hardware resources. In particular, the new incremental cube update feature enables you to add data and members to a cube without rebuilding the cube. This eliminates the time and resources required to rebuild cubes every time new data becomes available.
- New cube-building features. You can now create multiple hierarchies for a dimension and designate one of them as the default. Time dimensions can be built with user-supplied time hierarchies that auto-populate levels and formats. With the new View Cube function, you can verify the cube build process and visualize the data structure of a cube. In addition, cube jobs are now automatically generated when a cube is built.
- New and enhanced wizards. The Calculated Members Wizard is now fully integrated with the application. It includes an advanced expression builder that enables you to specify user-defined formats, set the solve order, and build a custom MDX formula. In addition, you can use the newly designed Aggregation Tuning Wizard to build, edit, and customize aggregations.
- Other new functionality, including the following: performing impact analysis for a cube, synchronizing a cube when a table column name has changed, attaching documents and notes to a cube, disabling a cube, and exporting and importing cubes as part of a SAS package.
SAS Web Report Studio
SAS Web Report Studio 4.2 includes the following enhancements:- An updated user interface that provides a more traditional desktop application experience. You can now drag and drop data source items to your reports and graphs, and you can drag the borders of objects to resize them. Context-sensitive menus are now available by right-clicking. When viewing reports, users in the appropriate role can add group breaks, change the data items in a section query, and delete objects. A new progress indicator displays while reports are being rendered, and partial screen refresh is now supported.
- More powerful filtering and linking features. A new search feature in the Filter dialog box lets you quickly filter large amounts of detailed data. You can define multiple filter conditions for a data item, filter numeric category data items by unformatted data values, and display data source filters that are based on physical columns. You can now link to a specific report section from the same report or a different report. In addition, you can link directly to a SAS stored process, include hyperlinks in stored process output for graphs, and add data-driven hyperlinks to tables.
- Updated graph features. You can now add vertical and horizontal reference lines to charts with annotations. On bar-line charts, you can include multiple lines, multiple bars, or both. The ability to create tile charts has also been added.
- Other enhancements, including the following: improved support for totals and for multidimensional data sources, a new default report style, bookmarks in PDF output, new page fit and page numbering options, and more flexible margin settings.
