Overview of the SAS Scoring Accelerator

When using conventional processing to access data inside a DBMS, SAS Enterprise Miner asks the SAS/ACCESS engine for all rows of the table being processed. The SAS/ACCESS engine generates an SQL SELECT * statement that is passed to the database. That SELECT statement fetches all the rows in the table, and the SAS/ACCESS engine returns them to SAS Enterprise Miner. As the number of rows in the table grows over time, network latency grows. This happens because the amount of data that is fetched from the database to the SAS scoring process increases.
The SAS Scoring Accelerator embeds the robustness of SAS Enterprise Miner scoring models directly in the highly scalable database. By using the SAS In-Database technology and the SAS Scoring Accelerator, the scoring process is done inside the database and thus does not require the transfer of data.
The SAS Scoring Accelerator takes the models that are developed by SAS Enterprise Miner and translates them into scoring files or functions that can be deployed inside the database. After the scoring functions are published, the functions extend the database’s SQL language and can be used in SQL statements like other database functions. After the scoring files are published, they are used by the SAS Embedded Process to run the scoring model.
The SAS Scoring Accelerator consists of two components:
  • the Score Code Export node in SAS Enterprise Miner. This extension exports the model scoring logic (including metadata about the required input and output variables) from SAS Enterprise Miner.
  • the publishing client that includes a scoring publishing macro. This macro translates the scoring model into files that are used inside the database to run the scoring model. The publishing client then uses the SAS/ACCESS Interface to the database to publish the files to the database.
In the August 2012 release, you can also use the SAS Scoring Accelerator and SAS Model Manager to import SAS/STAT linear models and SAS High-Performance Analytics models from a SAS package file (.SPK). Models that have a DATA step score code type can be scored, published, and included in performance monitoring. For more information, see the SAS Model Manager: User's Guide.