The SAS Intelligence Platform

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The following figure illustrates the SAS Intelligence Platform, a software architecture for end-to-end intelligence solutions.

Figure 2.2: Software Architecture for the SAS Intelligence Platform

SAS ETL Studio is in the SAS Client Services tier of the platform. It interacts with software in the other tiers.

SAS Foundation

The SAS Foundation layer consists of SAS products such as Base SAS, SAS/ CONNECT, SAS/GRAPH, SAS/ACCESS, SAS/STAT, SAS/ETS, SAS/OR, SAS/QC, and others in the SAS product line. These products provide a broad range of core data manipulation functions, such as distributed data management, data access across multiple database sources, data visualization, data mining, and advanced analytical modeling.

SAS ETL Studio generates SAS code and submits that code to Base SAS for execution. It also uses Base SAS to access data. SAS ETL Studio often uses SAS/ ACCESS to access data in formats other than SAS.

SAS ETL Studio uses SAS/CONNECT to submit generated SAS code to remote machines and to interact with remote libraries.

SAS Business Intelligence Infrastructure

The SAS Business Intelligence Infrastructure (BI Infrastructure) layer provides a suite of servers and services. With the BI Infrastructure, SAS can be deployed in multi-tier environments where Web servers and application servers operate.

SAS Foundation Servers

The servers in the BI Infrastructure include the following:

• SAS Metadata Server
  The SAS Metadata Server enables centralized, enterprise-wide metadata delivery and management: one metadata server provides metadata to SAS applications across the enterprise.

• SAS OLAP Server
  The SAS OLAP Server delivers pre-summarized cubes of data to OLAP clients such as SAS Enterprise Guide using OLE DB for OLAP. The SAS OLAP Server is a multidimensional database server that is designed to reduce the load on traditional back-end storage systems by delivering different summarized views of data to business intelligence applications, irrespective of the amount of data underlying these summaries.

• SAS Stored Process Server
  The SAS Stored Process Server executes and delivers results from SAS Stored Processes in a multi-client environment. A SAS Stored Process is a SAS program that can be called through the SAS Stored Process Server. Using the SAS Stored Process Server, clients can execute parameterized SAS programs without having to know the SAS language.

• SAS Workspace Server
  The SAS Workspace Server surfaces the SAS programming environment through an API to calling clients.

The example data warehouse that is described in this manual uses a SAS Metadata Server, a SAS Workspace Server, and a SAS OLAP Server. See "Enter Metadata for Servers" on page 42.

A SAS ETL Studio job can be saved as a stored process. The stored process can then be executed on a SAS Stored Process Server. In this way, people other than ETL specialists can execute SAS ETL Studio jobs, if they have the appropriate authorization. See the online Help for details. To display the relevant Help topics, perform the following steps:

1. From the SAS ETL Studio menu bar, select Help Contents. The online Help window displays.

2. In the left pane of the Help window, select Stored Processes Maintaining Stored Processes.

SAS Foundation Services

SAS ETL Studio and other applications depend on SAS Foundation Services to provide user authentication, profile management, session management, activity logging, metadata and content repository access, and connection management. Extension services for information publishing, event management, and SAS Stored Process execution are also provided.

SAS Application Services

SAS Application Services provide business-oriented query and reporting services to calling clients. By using a business metadata layer and a universal report definition, SAS Query and Reporting Services provide a solid foundation for enterprise reporting and application development. Java and COM-based interfaces to SAS Application Services surface to clients the functionality provided by SAS Query and Reporting Services. SAS Application Services can also be used by application developers to provide custom business intelligence capabilities within their solutions.

SAS Client Services

SAS ETL Studio is the SAS Client Services layer. This layer provides a suite of Web-based and desktop front-end interfaces to the content and applications generated from the SAS BI Infrastructure and the SAS Foundation.

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