Using SAS Enterprise Miner with a SAS Grid

There are three cases where SAS Enterprise Miner uses a SAS grid:

during model training, for parallel execution of nodes within a model training flow
during model training, for load balancing of multiple flows from multiple data modelers
during model scoring, for parallel batch scoring

The workflow for SAS Enterprise Miner during the model training phase consists of executing a series of different models against a common set of data. Model training is CPU-intensive and I/O-intensive. The process flow diagram design of SAS Enterprise Miner lends itself to processing on a SAS grid because each model is independent of the other models. SAS Enterprise Miner generates the SAS program to execute the user-created flow and also automatically inserts the syntax needed to run each model on the grid. Because the models can execute in parallel on the grid, the entire process is accelerated.

In addition, SAS Enterprise Miner is typically used by multiple users who are simultaneously performing model training. Using a SAS grid can provide multi-user load balancing of the flows that are submitted by these users, regardless of whether the flows contain parallel subtasks.

The output from training a model is usually Base SAS code that is known as scoring code. The scoring code is a model, and there are usually many models that need to be scored. You can use SAS Grid Manager to score these models in parallel. This action accelerates the scoring process. You can use any of these methods to perform parallel scoring:

Use the SAS Grid Manager Client Utility to submit each model independently to the SAS grid.
Use the Schedule Manager plug-in to create a flow that contains multiple models and schedule the flow to the SAS grid. Because each model is independent, the models are distributed across the grid when the flow runs.
Use SAS Data Integration Studio to create a flow to loop multiple models, which spawns each model to the grid.

Starting with SAS Enterprise Miner 6.2, you can specify that projects are sent to the grid by default.

In SAS Enterprise Miner 12.3, specify default grid processing by changing the attributes on the logical workspace server. Follow these steps:

In SAS Management Console, expand the Server Manager plug-in and then expand the SAS Application Server (typically named SASApp).
Select the Logical Workspace Server and select FileProperties.
On the Extended Attributes tab, click New.
In the Field Name column, enter EM_USE_GRID_IF_AVAILABLE.
In the Value column, enter Y.
Click OK to save the property changes.

In SAS Enterprise Miner 6.2 to 12.1, specify default grid processing by changing a configuration property. To set this property, locate the file app.config. A typical location for this file is C:\SAS\Config\AnalyticsPlatform\apps\EnterpriseMiner\app.config. Locate the property em.enablegrid. To turn on default grid processing, specify a value of Y. If you specify a value of N, you must send projects individually to the grid.

Grid Processing with SAS Enterprise Miner