SAS Administration from the Ground Up. Anja Fischer
at the SAS Configuration. We will only cover it briefly, to give you some very basics.
SAS Configuration Directories
After SAS is installed, you’ll find two different SAS directories. One called SASHOME and another one, called Lev1 (aka configuration directory) for the metadata managed, site-specific configuration for your SAS 9 platform services.
New admins are often taken by surprise that SAS has two directories, and don’t quite know what to do with them. I totally get it. So, let’s see whether we can shed some light on this “dual” directory situation.
SASHome
SASHOME includes subfolders for all your SAS desktop clients and SAS web clients. This directory (aka SAS root folder) is located per default at:
C:\Program Files\SASHome on Windows, and
/usr/local/SASHome on Linux/Unix.
Depending on the way SAS is installed, !SASHOME can be at another location
On Windows, for example, SASHOME might look like:
Figure 2.1: SASHOME directory
| Note: Depending on the products you have licensed, you might have different folders. |
Aside from executables and configuration files in each respective client folder, you find some other cool things, such as examples, SAS programs and data that is specific to that client.
Take SAS Enterprise Guide for example. Look at
SASHome\SASEnterpriseGuide\7.1\Sample and you’ll find code examples, data sets, and Enterprise Guide example projects.
If users run tests and do not want to touch production, or new users must come up to speed with SAS Enterprise Guide, these are some examples of situations where this test data might come in handy.
Another example is the SASFoundation folder, in which you can find example data sets, programs, catalogs and views: \SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\core\sample
| Note: The SASFoundation folder also stores your setinit information: !SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\core\sasinstThe setinit is your license file. This file includes the products your company has licensed and the date when the license expires. |
Lev1/Levn
Lev1/Levn is the metadata managed, site-specific configuration for your SAS 9 platform services. The default path for the configuration directory is \SAS-config-dir\Lev1\
where “SAS-config-dir” is the path that you chose during the deployment.
Just as with SASHOME, the configuration directory \SAS-config_dir\Lev1\ includes configuration files, scripts, etc. An example for a site-specific configuration directory is shown in Figure 2.2.
Figure 2.2: Lev1 Directory
| Note: Depending on the products you have licensed, the directory structure might look differently.Note: In some deployments you might find a Lev2 and/or Lev3. In such cases it simply means that one might have set up a dev, test, and prod environment, or, runs different SAS 9 versions in parallel. |
The following lists the content of the Levn subdirectory.
Contents of the Levn Subdirectory
(Resource: SAS® 9.4 Intelligence Platform: Administration / System Administration, available at: https://go.documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=bicdc&cdcVersion=9.4&docsetId=bisag&docsetTarget=p1oa9ysgpowj4vn19o67gc7xrrr0.htm&locale=en)
| Subdirectory or File | Description |
| AppData | Contains indexes and the repository configuration file for the SAS Content Server, and data that is installed for the use of specific applications (for example, SAS BI Dashboard). |
| Backup/Vault | Is the default location for backups that are created by the Deployment Backup and Recovery Tool. |
| ConnectSpawner | Contains the management script, configuration files, and logs for the SAS/CONNECT spawner. |
| Data | Can be used to store user data. |
| DeploymentTesterServer | Contains files that are used by the Deployment Tester plug-in to SAS Management Console. |
| Documents | Contains Instructions.html, which contains post-installation configuration instructions; DeploymentSummary.html; ConfigurationErrors.html; and other application-specific documents.Tip:The instructions.html file includes all information about how SAS was installed, errors or warnings that might have occurred during the install, links, ports and other helpful information. You can look at that file to find out about configuration paths, log file locations, links etc. It can be helpful to familiarize yourself with your SAS install.Aside from the instructions.html file, there are other helpful information available. The next table lists some of them as examples. |
| Logs | Can be used as a common directory for server and spawner logs, if you selected this option during a custom installation. By default, each server has its own separate log directory. |
| Logs/Configure | Contains logs that are created by the SAS Deployment Wizard. |
| ObjectSpawner | Contains a management script, configuration files, and logs for the object spawner. |
| SASApp | Contains management scripts, configuration files, and logs for SAS Application Server components |
| SASMeta | Contains management scripts, configuration files, metadata repositories, logs, and other files and directories for the SAS Metadata Server. . |
| ShareServer | Contains the management script, configuration information, and log files for the SAS/SHARE server. |
| Utilities | Contains XML files that are used as input to the SAS Deployment Wizard and utilities that are associated with this configuration instance. |
| Web | See Contents of the Web Subdirectory. |
| WebInfrastructurePlatformDataServer | Contains the management script, configuration information, and log files for the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform Data Server. |
| generate_boot_scripts.sh | Is a script that is used to regenerate the sas.servers script on UNIX. |
| metadataConfig.xml | Provides information for application server components to use when they connect to a clustered metadata server. |
| sas.servers | Is a management script that is used on UNIX to start, stop, or restart all servers on the machine in the correct order, or to display the status of all servers on the machine. |
| sasv9_meta.cfg | Specifies metadata server connection information for the SAS OLAP Server and SAS/SHARE server. |
SAS Tiers: The three plus one SAS Tiers in a metadata-managed environment
The SAS Levn configuration is only one part of the SAS Platform. It is also important to know that your environment is an n-tier architecture, which means that all components that make up your SAS environment, can be distributed over multiple computer resources. Each tier component, each tier part, performs only the work it is responsible for.
Depending on the number of servers you have available, the SAS tiers can be installed across multiple machines or on a single machine. Going back to our analogy at the beginning: each room fulfills a different purpose, “stores” different objects, serves different members of a family. All of the rooms together make your house (SAS deployment). Now, what are these tiers?
Getting to grips with the SAS tiers truly is a fundamental requirement for a good SAS administrator. In SAS 9, we have three tiers, plus one. Plus one, because the fourth tier is not a SAS tier, but is an important element. Let’s investigate each tier a bit further.
SAS Servers Tier aka Compute Tier
Simply put: SAS servers perform SAS processing on your data. They are SAS Server processes running on one or more physical or virtual server machines.
Important – and often misunderstood: The tiers are not actual physical machines, but processes,