Breaking down barriers with SAS cloud solutions

The future of data and analytics is in the cloud, according to Gartner Research. It predicts that by 2022, public cloud services will be essential for 90 per cent of data and analytics innovation.
This acceleration to the cloud is evident with analytics solutions: Thirty-four per cent of organisations use cloud-based solutions, but 71% of IT leaders say they are seeking a cloud-based deployment model when evaluating new analytics tools.

They understand that the cloud provides the scale and speed organisations require to rapidly process and analyse large data sets. Shifting analytics to the cloud can open the door for powerful capabilities to solve problems and to act quickly to meet market demands. The pandemic has turned that need into an urgent imperative. In the last six months, companies have had to pivot to provide more holistic online customer experiences.

Let us delve into why SAS cloud solutions are breaking down barriers.

Scalability is at the heart of SAS cloud solutions

A global SAS survey of over 1000 organisations reveals that agility is the primary driver for moving to the cloud. Moving analytics to the cloud removes an obstacle that is slowing down progress towards true digital transformation–the inability to deploy analytics quickly at scale.

Legacy systems are designed for stability, not innovation. Traditionally, organisations have sized their on-premise infrastructure to accommodate peak analytic workloads. It takes significant time and effort to scale up or down. The reality is that computing demands are unpredictable and they change with the complexity of the data and swings in business needs. With analytics in the cloud, organisations have ready access to elastic computing and storage resources, allowing them to innovate much faster.

Assured flexibility and reliability

With flexible storage space, your business won’t need any additional hardware or another program to accommodate large volumes of data. Aside from cutting costs, this also helps employees perform better as it will be easier for them to work together efficiently. All they need to do is access data or resources from the cloud and collaborate with each other to ensure the success of programs and projects.

In addition, using the cloud will also give employees more freedom to work according to their preferred time as the cloud can be accessed anytime, anywhere – as long as they can connect to the internet.

Since the cloud will allow users to adjust according to site traffic, dealing with your customers or clients’ needs will not be a problem anymore. You can connect with them any time you need or want to. As such, this will result in increased customer satisfaction.

Another benefit of moving to the cloud is the level of reliability. If one server is down, you’ll still be able to access your data as another server will take its place. This means that all your resources will be kept safe at any time.

Adaptability and transferring power- Reimagining spaces with COVID-19

Cloud analytics is a game-changer for organisations to be able to adapt to the kind of unprecedented market shift caused by COVID-19.

According to Gartner, organisations that offer users access to a curated catalogue of internal and external data will generate twice the business value from analytics investments than those that do not. The rise of cloud has helped resolve data infrastructure scalability concerns, providing data analytics software-as-a-service. Cloud has ensured the latest tooling is readily available without the need to maintain and patch, while traditional database administrators can build machine-learning models without the knowledge required just a few years ago.

The technical director at Google, James Tromans further related that “cottage industries” and data fiefdoms will gradually disintegrate; the future of data analytics is in the cloud. Those with the correct clearance can quickly start applying advanced data analytics to a valuable business problem in a way that simply wasn’t previously possible.

SAS cloud solutions paving the way for the future

SAS cloud solutions bring a lot of exciting prospects for the future because it allows analytics teams to deliver better service to clients around the world. Organisations benefit because the ROI from investing in analytics will improve. Data security will be more secure and operations will be more flexible. It is only a matter of time before organisations ask for cloud solutions and our team at Selerity is ready to meet the challenge.

Visit our website to know more about SAS cloud solutions and how it is paving the way for a bright future!

Optimising your SAS cloud environment

When my kids were young, they had an interesting habit.

Every day, they would take one particular car toy and clean it. It was the same one every day, they would wipe it down with a wet tissue napkin, inspect the tires, open the bonnet and check the engine, before putting it back on the shelf. It was an unusual habit to have, but it wasn’t a particularly bad one, so I wasn’t fussed about it. Until one day, they asked me an unusual question.

One day, they came to me asking for engine oil. “Engine oil?” I asked. “Whatever for?” “To keep the engine in good condition!” they said. “It’s important, right? You always say that you need to change the engine oil, and it sounds important.” I have been talking about changing the engine oil for some time, but it was always one of those tasks that got put off to another date.

“That’s true, but why do you two need engine oil?” “To keep the car in good condition,” was the reply. I couldn’t help it, I laughed, needless to say, the kids were not pleased. “What’s so funny?” I remember them demanding, “The toy doesn’t need oil!” I said, “These aren’t toys!” they snapped. “It’s our future cars! We are going to own a car just like these, and we are going to take good care of them, we are going to change the oil, check the tyres and make sure it’s in perfect condition.”

So, why am I bringing up a story about a toy car and my kids when the topic is about optimising your SAS cloud environment? Well, you see, when my children owned cars of their own, they lasted for a long time, delivering smooth rides, giving them little to no trouble, and they never spent a fortune trying to fix their cars.

Likewise, if you want your SAS cloud environment to deliver optimal findings while cutting costs, then you are going to have to optimise the environment. The terms may be different, but the goal is the same.

Optimising the SAS cloud environment

If you want to optimise your SAS cloud environment, then there are several factors to consider. Optimising SAS cloud means due consideration to several factors, like data size, memory usage and CPU performance. You will also need to discuss the possibility of optimising the I/O and system performance.

Then, there is the business side to consider. Depending on the stakeholder of the project, optimisation could have very different terms. For example, for a business executive, optimisation means getting that report as soon as possible, while a CIO will care more about reliability, scalability, availability (RAS). So, before you invest resources, you need to clearly define what optimisation is and have the stats to back it up.

Some of the challenges you will encounter and what you can do about it

Optimisation of the SAS cloud platform is a challenging task because there are so many variables to consider. Not only do you have to think about business requirements, but you also have to consider other factors like hardware, number of users, the current cost of the hardware, along with a host of other variables that could affect performance.

To meet these challenges, you should consult with a specialist from outside your organisation. In my experience, specialists bring the technical knowledge of a SAS platform, without any of the politics that often derail business projects. It’s the type of value my team at Selerity brings to its clients.

So, if you are looking to optimise your SAS cloud infrastructure for operational efficiency, consider working with a specialist. When done right, an optimised SAS cloud will deliver the results, reliably, efficiently and well within your budget, much like a well-maintained car.