Overview of Clients

SAS Intelligence Platform clients include desktop applications and Web-based applications. The following table lists the clients by type:

The desktop applications are supported only on Microsoft Windows systems. The exception is SAS Management Console, which runs on all platforms except z/OS. All of the Java desktop applications require the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which includes a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that executes the application and a set of standard Java class libraries. If you have installed the SAS Foundation on a host, the JRE will already be present on that machine. Otherwise, you can install the JRE that is supplied by SAS before you install the first Java client.

The Web-based applications reside and execute on the middle tier (see Middle-Tier Components of the SAS Intelligence Platform). They require only a Web browser to be installed on each client machine, with the addition of Adobe Flash Player for SAS BI Dashboard. The applications run on a Web application server and communicate with the user by sending data to and receiving data from the user's browser. For example, an application of this type displays its user interface by sending an HTML document to the user's browser. The user can submit input to the application by sending it an HTTP response—usually by clicking a link or submitting an HTML form.