SAS Web Infrastructure Platform

The SAS Web Infrastructure Platform is a collection of services and applications that provide common infrastructure and integration features to be used by SAS Web applications. These services and applications provide the following benefits:
  • consistency in installation, configuration, and administration tasks for Web applications
  • greater consistency in users' interactions with Web applications
  • integration among Web applications as a result of the ability to share common resources
The following services and applications are included in the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform:
SAS BI Web Services
can be used to enable your custom applications to invoke and obtain metadata about SAS Stored Processes. Web services enable distributed applications that are written in different programming languages and that run on different operating systems to communicate using standard Web-based protocols. The most common protocol is the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).
SAS Shared Web Assets
contains graph applet JARs that are shared across SAS Web applications. They display graphs in stored processes and in the SAS Stored Process Web application.
SAS Web Infrastructure Services
provide a common infrastructure for SAS Web applications. The infrastructure supports activities such as auditing, authentication, configuration, status and monitoring, e-mail, theme management, alert registration and notification, collaboration, and data sharing across SAS Web applications. The infrastructure also includes Web service interfaces that enable Java and .NET desktop applications to access the authentication service. SAS Enterprise Miner and other analytic products and solutions use these services for user authentication.
SAS Logon Manager
provides a common user authentication mechanism for SAS Web applications. It displays a dialog box for user ID and password entry, authenticates the user, and launches the requested application. SAS Logon Manager supports a single sign-on authentication model. When this model is enabled, it provides access to a variety of computing resources (including servers and Web pages) during the application session without repeatedly prompting the user for credentials.
You can configure SAS Logon Manager to display custom messages and to specify whether a logon dialog box is displayed when users log off.
In addition, you can use third-party products in conjunction with SAS Logon Manager to enable users to access multiple Web applications within the same browser session.
SAS Preferences Manager
provides a common mechanism for managing preferences for SAS Web applications. The feature enables administrators to set default preferences for locale, theme, alert notification, and time, date, and currency display. Within each Web application, users can view the default settings and update their individual preferences.
SAS Comment Manager
enables users to create comments related to business intelligence objects. Users can then reply to, search for, retire, delete, or add attachments to existing comments. This feature enables the capture of human intelligence and supports collaborative decision making related to business data.
SAS Stored Process Web Application
executes stored processes on behalf of a Web client and return results to a Web browser. The SAS Stored Process Web application is similar to the SAS/IntrNet Application Broker, and has the same general syntax and debug options.
SAS Web Administration Console
provides features for monitoring and administering middle-tier components. This browser-based interface enables administrators to do the following:
  • view a list of users who are logged on to SAS Web applications, send e-mail to active users, and manage users’ logins during system maintenance by preventing, terminating, and restarting user access
  • view audit reports of logon and logoff activity
  • create, delete, and manage permissions for folders on the SAS Content Server
  • view configuration information for each middle-tier component
  • dynamically adjust logging levels for some Web applications
SAS Content Server
stores digital content (such as documents, reports, and images) that is created and used by SAS Web applications. For more information, see SAS Content Server .
SAS Workflow Engine
enables the deployment and execution of workflows and processes that are integrated with certain SAS applications and solutions. The SAS Workflow Studio client application enables business users to quickly create or modify process maps to be executed by the engine.
By default, the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform uses the SAS Framework Data Server to store alerts, comments, workflows, and SAS Content Server data. During installation, you can choose to store this data in a third-party database instead.
For more information about the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform, see the SAS Intelligence Platform: Middle-Tier Administration Guide.