IOM Servers

The Integrated Object Model (IOM) in SAS Integration Technologies provides distributed object interfaces to SAS software features. To call these interfaces, clients can use industry-standard languages, programming tools, and communication protocols. The interfaces are built into SAS and are available to clients whenever SAS is executed as an object server.

An IOM server is an object server that is launched in order to fulfill client requests for IOM services. There are four types of IOM servers:

SAS Workspace Server

is provided with SAS Integration Technologies and is accessed through the IOM workspace interface. This interface provides access to Foundation SAS software features such as the SAS language, SAS libraries, the server file system, results content, and formatting services. A SAS workspace represents a session with the SAS System, and is functionally equivalent to a SAS Display Manager session or the execution of the SAS System as a batch job.

SAS Stored Process Server

is a multi-user server that is provided with SAS Integration Technologies and is used to execute SAS Stored Processes and deliver the results. A SAS Stored Process is a SAS program that is stored on a server and can be called by client applications. SAS Stored Processes enable clients to execute parameterized SAS programs without having to know the SAS language.

SAS OLAP Server

delivers pre-summarized "cubes" of data to OLAP clients like SAS Enterprise Guide using OLE DB for OLAP. Cubes are logical sets of data that are organized and structured in a hierarchical, multidimensional arrangement. You can query cubes using the multidimensional expression (MDX) language. The SAS OLAP Server, which is provided with SAS Intelligent Storage products, is designed to reduce the load on traditional back-end storage systems by delivering summarized views of data to business intelligence applications, irrespective of the amount of data underlying these summaries.

SAS Metadata Server

is a multi-user server, provided with SAS Foundation, that enables users to read metadata from or write metadata to one or more SAS Metadata Repositories. SAS Metadata Repositories contain metadata that represents items such as SAS application servers (including SAS Workspace Servers, SAS OLAP Servers, and SAS Stored Process Servers), users in the metadata environment, libraries, tables, stored processes, and cubes.

Configuring and Using IOM Servers

You can use the SAS Configuration Wizard to plan, install, and define the configurations for your IOM servers. Detailed documentation is provided to help you perform these tasks either with or without the wizard. Documentation is also provided to help you manage and administer your server configurations after installation, and to assist you in developing application programs that use the IOM servers.

The following table provides information about the documentation that is available for IOM servers:

Connecting Clients to IOM Servers

For SAS Integration Technologies 9, the information that is needed to connect to an IOM server can now be obtained from a SAS Metadata Server. SAS Integration Technologies 9 supports additional SAS software features by enabling Java and Windows clients to to connect to and request objects from various types of IOM servers including other SAS Metadata Servers, SAS OLAP Servers, SAS Stored Process Servers, and SAS Workspace Servers.

Note: If you are using an LDAP directory server as your metadata repository, then you can only access workspace servers.

SAS Integration Technologies facilitates client/server communication across multiple vendor architectures by supporting multiple client/server interoperability standards. The chart below shows the different ways that clients and IOM servers can communicate.

Windows Clients

As shown in the illustration, Windows clients that are written in languages such as Visual Basic or Visual C++ access IOM servers running in the Windows operating environment using Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM/DCOM). Windows client interfaces provided in SAS Integration Technologies support two leading industry standards: ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) and Object Linked Embedding for Databases (OLE DB).

Windows clients accessing IOM servers on non-Windows server platforms use the IOM Bridge for COM. This bridge allows you to develop native COM/DCOM applications that access server data, for example, on UNIX and mainframe platforms. This transparency is a key feature of SAS Integration Technologies. It enables application developers to have full access to the architectural elements available in the Windows environment, even when their clients communicate with servers in other operating environments. The bridge makes other operating environments appear to be extensions of the client's native operating environment.

With SAS Integration Technologies 9, Windows clients can use the Windows Object Manager to connect to IOM servers.

Note: SAS Integration Technologies 9 still supports the Version 8 interface for using the Windows Workspace Manager. However, it is recommended that you use the Windows Object Manager interface in order to take advantage of the new features.

Java Clients

Java clients that access IOM servers use the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). CORBA is an architecture for an open software bus on which objects can interoperate across networks and operating systems.

The Object Request Broker (ORB) is the key element of CORBA. It provides the infrastructure for distributed object computing by enabling software components (objects) on one machine to locate and communicate with components on other machines. This infrastructure enables you, as an application developer, to focus on implementing your business logic instead of worrying about all the underlying technology.

SAS Integration Technologies provides an ORB called the IOM bridge for Java. This ORB implements the standard CORBA ORB interface defined by the Object Management Group (OMG). It uses a proprietary inter-orb protocol (called the IOM Bridge protocol) to communicate with the IOM server.

With SAS Integration Technologies 9, Java clients can use the Java Connection Factory to connect to IOM servers.

Note: SAS Integration Technologies 9 still supports the Version 8 interface for using the Java Workspace Factory. However, it is recommended that you use the Connection Factory interface in order to take advantage of the new features.