SAS Marketing Optimization 6.6 includes SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting. This component is required to enable the Reporting Workspace in the CI Studio user interface. If SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting is not installed, the Reporting Workspace will not be available in your system. Refer to the deployment instructions for more information.
To keep pace with changes to third-party technologies, SAS has adopted a general policy of supporting one or more baseline major versions and subsequent minor updates for each officially supported operating system. For example, if the baseline for SAS x is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1, SAS x will also support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.7 under this policy.
The full SAS Support policy that applies to third-party software can be found at https://support.sas.com/en/documentation/third-party-software-reference/baseline-and-higher.html. As part of this policy, SAS strongly encourages customers to install the latest operating-system service packs.
SAS Marketing Optimization Server includes Advanced Computing Library and three SAS Metadata Bridges of choice.
SAS Marketing Optimization Server also includes a standard SAS/ACCESS engine of choice (for transaction data) and the following SAS/ACCESS engines of choice:
Platform Suite for SAS is available as an orderable, line item add-on. While it is not required, it is recommended if job scheduling is needed.
SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting Server includes one standard SAS/ACCESS engine of choice. SAS recommends that you install SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting Server on a separate machine from the solution software.
Inclusion of SAS Visual Analytics LASR Server
For Hadoop Support
Base SAS, SAS/ACCESS engines, and SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting Server can be installed on the head node of the commodity hardware (symmetric) or on separate hardware (asymmetric). The Distributed LASR Base SAS components for SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting can therefore be installed on Windows for x64 while working with the Linux for x64 LASR grid.
The SAS Solution LASR Analytic Server must run on the same platform as the SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting Server. You can install it on the Solution Server, on the SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting Server, or on a dedicated server.
The SAS Solution LASR Analytic Server includes a standard SAS/ACCESS engine of choice for transaction data.
With SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting release 7.1 and later, Teradata and EMC Greenplum, like all other data storage providers, must use the Embedded Process to achieve parallel loading.
In previous releases, LASR used memory mapping of data between in-memory storage and on-disk storage, which allowed for faster data loads into memory—a special case of parallel loading for Teradata and Greenplum only. This memory mapping was provided by features in SAS High-Performance Analytics that were utilized by LASR. These specific memory mapping models are no longer supported for Teradata and Greenplum.
Use of a colocated Hadoop File System (HDFS) is optional, but it requires a supported Hadoop environment and SAS Plug-ins for Hadoop (which are included with your license). For information about supported Hadoop distributions, refer to https://support.sas.com/en/documentation/third-party-software-reference/9-4/support-for-hadoop.html. The plug-ins require additional configuration. For more information, see SAS High-Performance Analytics Infrastructure 3.5: Installation and Configuration Guide at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/hp-analytics-infrastructure/index.html.
SAS makes the following recommendations for SAS Metadata Server deployments:
The disk I/O performance of any server-class system should be sufficient. Memory requirements are highly dependent on the product mix and usage, but 8 GB of RAM are sufficient for most large deployments. For many deployments, 4 GB of RAM are sufficient and should be considered a minimum, unless the specific deployment is tested and verified to require less memory.
SAS recommends installing the SAS Visual Analytics Administration and Reporting Mid-Tier server on a separate machine.
Information about Java requirements can be found on the SAS 9.4 Support for Java web page.
The middle tier of the SAS® 9.4 Intelligence Platform includes a SAS Web Application Server and a SAS Web Server for use as an HTTP server.
The SAS Web Application Server is a lightweight server that provides enterprise-class features for running SAS web applications. For more information about these servers, refer to https://support.sas.com/en/documentation/third-party-software-reference/9-4/support-for-web-application-servers.html.
The list of web browsers that SAS supports is updated as new products are tested and approved. For the latest information, visit the SAS 9.4 Support for Web Browsers and Plug-Ins page at https://support.sas.com/en/documentation/third-party-software-reference/9-4/support-for-9-4-web-browsers.html.
Support for presentation virtualization environments for clients included with SAS Marketing Optimization (for example, Citrix) is consistent with the SAS corporate support policy, which can be found at http://support.sas.com/techsup/pcn/virtualization.html.
The SAS Visual Analytics App is supported on Apple iPhones and iPads; Google Android smartphones and tablets; and PCs and tablets running Microsoft Windows. You can download the free mobile app from the Apple App Store, Google Play, or the Microsoft Store.
SAS recommends using the SAS Visual Analytics App to view and interact with reports on mobile devices. For more information, see the SAS Visual Analytics App Learn and Support page.
SAS Treatment-Level Optimization requires disk space. Consider all of the following in your sizing analysis:
For example, for a 100 GB customer table in the common SAS library directory, SAS Marketing Optimization generates a 100 GB solution table. Because the file is a copy, a 100 GB customer input file requires more than 300 GB of available library space for complete processing.
In addition, you use an additional 100 GB of space in the SASWORK or /temp directory in order to produce the customer file. A 100 GB customer input table therefore requires about 400 GB at peak usage.
The minimum recommended memory for the SAS Marketing Optimization middle tier is 8 GB.
Memory requirements for optimal performance may vary, and should be determined based on consultation with SAS Enterprise Excellence Center.
This is the amount of disk space that the SAS Marketing Optimization Server setup directory requires. Additional space might also be required for new content, such as campaigns and reports.
SAS Marketing Optimization can connect to various databases using SAS/ACCESS. The following list provides databases with which SAS Marketing Optimization 6.6 is compatible:
Note: For specific version information, refer to SAS Support for Cloud and Database Variants and consult the SAS/ACCESS system requirements, which are included in the SAS 9.4 Foundation system requirements document that corresponds to your operating system.
Note: Microsoft SQL Server Standard Edition is only supported for up to 10 million customer records.
Note: If your installation includes Oracle Database 12c, be aware that Oracle Multitenant Architecture is not supported.
Notes: SAS Data Sets are not supported with use of the CI Common Reporting Data Model, and no more than 5 million customer-equivalent records are supported.
Note: Mixing of databases will not perform to an acceptable level and is not recommended.
SAS software may be provided with certain third-party software, including but not limited to open-source software, which is licensed under its applicable third-party software license agreement. For license information about third-party software distributed with SAS software, refer to http://support.sas.com/thirdpartylicenses.