I was recently asked installed to install the SAS software package. The organization isn't really a heavy SAS user. They basically import data into SAS and then are provided SAS programs from an external collaborative that are used to verify data quality. If the data passes, the data is shared with the larger collaborative. In this sense SAS is more just a neutral data format.
The organization had been running a version of SAS on an old Linux server, but it was at least 5 years out of date (both SAS and Linux). I had them spin up a Windows 2016 sever since the organization seemed more comfortable maintaining that.
Note that I'm not a SAS expert. I generally work in the Microsoft stack and with relational databases, so my opinions are biased towards that perspective. That being said, SAS is an old school behemoth. The company has been around since the 60s, and it seems their methodology hasn't changed much. I believe their software has a place, especially if your organization "has always used SAS", but this software wouldn't be my go-to if asked to solve a problem.
Just getting software was difficult. There is no "community edition" on the website. I reached out to SAS sales and had three calls with their staff and was no closer to getting the software (or a price quote) than I was when I started. They just kept bringing more people to each call that "needed to understand my goals", which were simply "get SAS, install SAS". Fortunately, the organization I was working with finally was able to find the internal person that procured SAS. She was able to point me to the file share with the SAS install files. I then copied the files (20 GB!) to the server to begin the install.
SAS is based on Java. It includes and installs it's own copy of Java, so you don't need to install this separately.
There is lots of info. on the internet about installing SAS. This document seems to summarize the process pretty well.
I'll just be hitting the key highlights and issues that came up during my install.
I was given the "SAS software depot" by our SAS procurement person. This is all the install files downloaded and placed on a file share. Make sure all this is copied to your local server unless you want the install to run for a really long time.
Yes there is a setup.exe! Make sure you are logged in as an admin and run this. Follow the documentation in the above link.
There are many options to select or deselect. For the most part go with the defaults, however there are 3 main products you can install: SAS Studio - Single User, SAS Studio Basic, and SAS Mid-tier. If you the only person using SAS, install SAS Single User. If you are a small team using SAS and are installing it on a server and want web browser access, go with SAS Studio Basic. We use SAS Studio Basic.
Note that I would also select "Report Fonts for Clients" and "SAS Drivers for ODBC" if not selected.
Only select the language you want to install.
Select "SAS/ACCESS Interface to ODBC" if your license permits. This will allow you to import/export data from SQL Server pretty easily. Create an "ODBC System DSN" entry on the SAS server to facilitate this.
With the options I selected there ended up being about 300 steps the installer went through. The install took a couple of hours.
When done there will be a folder: C:\Program Files\SASHome
I recommend rebooting after the install. The web functionality didn't work correctly until after I rebooted.
After the install is complete, there will be a folder at C:\sas\studioconfig\documents that contains an html file. The html files summarizes the URL the SAS Studio website is running under (ex. http://servername:38080). Go to the URL and make sure you get a login page.
By default SAS utilizes your Windows Authentication for your SAS authentication, so log in with your domain account. Local Administrators have full access in SAS. At a minimum users need to have "Access This Computer from the Network and Log on as a Batch Job." Run secpol.msc to change this. Add users or groups under "Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment". I created a local group called "SAS Users" for easier administration.
Make sure your license covers whichever components you decide to install. There are files in the software depot that detail out your license features.
The SAS license files are located here: C:\Program Files\SASHome\licenses
They should have been brought over automatically from your software depot as part of the install. Note that the license needs to updated annually, so you will need to drop an updated license file in this folder eventually.
The main configuration file is located in: C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\nls
By default SAS wants to store work files for each user in that SASHome folder. These can become very large, and the C: drive is not an ideal location for this purpose. Towards the bottom of the config. file change the -WORK value to be something like this to move the work files elsewhere:
-WORK "F:\SASWORK!USERNAME\SAS Temporary Files"
Note that the !USERNAME is important, as each user needs their own folder.
Also I would recommend changing the values of -MEMSIZE and -SORTSIZE depending on your server capacity. By default MEMSIZE is only 2GB (this limits the memory usage per user to 2GB). I changed this to 20GB.
Our installation went fine, and SAS seems to be running well. We resolved some significant issues as a result of this upgrade process and the move to Windows.