About Staging the Data

Why Stage the Data?

IT performance data is created and processed by unique IT systems, methods, management utilities, and code. Therefore, SAS IT Resource Management must stage the raw data that is created by these various utilities so that the IT performance data is standardized and comparable. For example, the formats for timestamps and units of measurement must be standardized, duplicate data must be processed based on business needs, and so on.

SAS IT Resource Management uses the following two components of a job to prepare and stage raw data:

staging transformations (including user-written staging transformations)
staged tables

Note: The VMware vCenter adapter uses two staging transformations (VMware Data Acquisition and VMware vCenter) to prepare and stage raw data. For information about the VMware Data Acquisition staging transformation, see VMware Data Acquisition Jobs.

Staging transformations generate the code that extracts raw data, transforms it to a standardized format, and loads it into staged tables. These staged tables are based on template tables that are supplied for supported adapters. For more information about template tables, see Working with Template Tables.

You can review the specifications of staging transformations and staged tables. You can also configure elements of the extraction and staging process to accommodate the requirements of your raw data and business environment. For more information about staging transformations, see What is a Staging Transformation?. For more information about staged tables, see What Is a Staged Table?.

Methods for Staging the Data

To administer the staging process and specify the parameters for your environment, you must create and deploy one or more jobs that include an associated staging transformation for the adapter that you use. Staging transformations are included in staging jobs in order to create the SAS programs that stage the data and populate the staged tables. These staging jobs create SAS staged tables in the IT data mart. The SAS staged tables serve as the basis for all performance management, capacity planning data management, analysis, and reporting that you perform when using SAS IT Resource Management.

SAS IT Resource Management provides the following methods for staging IT performance data to create and populate staged tables:

using the Adapter Setup wizard to create staging transformations and staging jobs automatically for a given adapter. When these staging transformations are executed within a job, a set of staged tables is created based on the parameters set in the Adapter Setup wizard. For more information about using the Adapter Setup wizard to stage data, see Using the Adapter Setup Wizard.
creating and modifying jobs with staging transformations manually and using the Staged Table wizard to create customized staged tables. For more information about performing these tasks, see the following topics:
- Add a Staging Transformation to a Staging Job
- Create Staged Tables

You can also create staging transformations and staged tables to stage data from any input source based on the unique specifications of any business environment. SAS IT Resource Management provides a user-written staging transformation for user-written code. For more information about the user-written staging transformation, see User-Written Staging Transformations.

SAS Data Integration Studio tools such as the Process Designer can also help create the staging code and the staging job that is necessary to support any input source. For more information about using these tools to create user-written staging code, see User-Written Staging Transformations.