What you need to consider before your SAS installation

Data analytics is a necessity in the modern business landscape. Whether large or small, all businesses rely on relevant streams of data to make good decisions across every function including sales, marketing, production, finance, and human resources.

Today, there are many traditional ways of carrying out data analysis, including mathematical methods and modern data analysis tools. SAS, however, is the most common solution being used for data analysis. It’s quick, fast, and reliable, making it a firm favourite among businesses across every industry. 

These companies need to sift through large amounts of data across multiple databases, which can be time-consuming and erroneous. 

The good news? SAS can make this process easier and is one of the best platforms for eliminating human error.

That said, SAS analytics platforms are not simple tools—they need to be handled and installed with the utmost precision by considering all the different variables of your organisation.

Here are a few things you need to consider before your SAS installation.

Consider the “where”

SAS platforms are versatile and can be installed even on basic enterprise hardware, but you need to consider where your deployment will sit before the installation process begins.

There are a few options for this: you can deploy the SAS platform on a single machine and call it a day or you can deploy it across multiple servers and networks if you want to handle large amounts of data. 

SAS solutions like Viya—a popular choice among modern organisations—can even be deployed entirely on the cloud, eliminating the need for any physical hardware.

When everything is said and done, there are pros and cons for each deployment option, and you need to decide which is the best for your data analytics requirements. 

You may also need to consider future requirements during the decision-making process given that you may want to scale your analytics infrastructure up as your business grows.

You may need professional support during the installation

As mentioned earlier, installing SAS’ data analytics solutions can be a long and complex process. Any mistake or oversight during the installation can result in an under-optimised deployment, which can defeat the purpose of your SAS platform. 

Professional installation services will help you get the installation right, so you don’t have to worry about a botched installation. With professional SAS installation services, you get a deployment that is optimised for your specific needs and requirements.

If you decide to deploy SAS on the cloud, for instance, professional installation services can take care of important elements such as AWS configuration and much more.

Consider SAS support services

Before installing SAS’ analytics platform, you need to consider what SAS support services you may need to ensure the smooth operation of your data analytics deployment. 

While there are many different SAS support services to choose from, SAS administration is a must-have for all deployments. 

Although you can undertake SAS administration yourself, it’s best to outsource the technical components to professionals, so you can focus on what matters most and make better decisions with top-notch insights.

SAS administration services can also help you maintain your deployment at an optimal level with regular maintenance and software upgrades. Without regular maintenance, your deployment may develop discrepancies, which can result in inaccurate insights. SAS administration services can resolve these issues without too much effort from your end.

You may also want to consider SAS hosting services, along with installation and administration services, as they give you complete control over your deployment.

Don’t forget the human factor

In this process, you also need to think about the human factor before deploying your SAS data analytics platform, as SAS analytics professionals can augment your ROI.

While most system admins or computer engineers can navigate their way around the SAS platform, trained SAS experts will be able to optimise the data analytics pipeline to produce more accurate results at a steady rate.

You can utilise the SAS training programme to familiarise your analytics team before deploying the software. When SAS analytics tools are deployed, your employees will be able to optimise the insights produced by the platform so it meets your requirements.

Conquer the unknown with a professional SAS installation

Regardless of which industry you operate in, there is a SAS data analytics solution for you. 

With the power of SAS and data analytics, make better decisions and drive long-lasting success for your business.

SAS services – 4 game-changing insights you can expect

With SAS software paving the way as one of the world’s leading analytics platforms, many organisations are experiencing unprecedented benefits from the data they are collating. From strengthening visibility into employee performance to product/service movement analytics to supporting anti-fraud/AML initiatives, SAS software has streamlined organisational analytics like never before. To complement this powerful analytics platform, many organisations, and the administrators within them, are turning to SAS services as a means of further optimising their analytics.

As a leading provider of SAS services, we’ve helped many of our clients using SAS software in a multitude of ways – from SAS installation services to SAS administration services to SAS hosting services (both SAS 9.4 and SAS Viya). Our team of experts builds on the already formidable SAS platform and helps organisations make the most of their analytics. Remember, having access to a powerful data and analytics platform is only the first step. You need to know how to use this data in a manner that can drive value. That’s where SAS services come into play.

In this blog, we run through 4 incredibly game-changing insights you can expect to experience by leveraging the right SAS services provider.

 

SAS services give insights into your organisation’s analytics

This probably seems obvious but one of the biggest benefits of using SAS services, especially ones like our SAS administration services, is that organisations will gain insights into all the data they are now privy too – thanks to their powerful SAS software. Having too much data without knowing how to use/view it can be as useless as not having it all.

By leveraging SAS services, an organisation would be able to connect the data insights they gain via their SAS analytics platform with experts who will be able to instruct them on the best ways to funnel and use these insights. SAS services and experts will be able to identify previously unnoticed trends within your data, which could potentially drive a lot of value to an organisation. The result? Organisations will get to understand their inner workings better than ever before!

 

Get to know your customers better

In today’s data-driven world, customers are aware of all the marketing noise that’s out there and no longer respond to generic messaging that they once may have responded to. The most successful organisations in today’s landscape are those who are able to reach customers in ways that matter and appeal to them the most. Using data to achieve this is one of the best ways to go about this.

To make sure you’re getting the right insights, however, you’ll need the help of expert SAS services and consultants, who’d be able to show you key customer behavioural trends that will shed light into the best ways of engaging them.

Does your customer make purchases every quarter? Is there a specific product/service type they prefer? Your data, if funnelled correctly, will help you identify all this and more – allowing you to focus on specific groups while tailoring your messaging accordingly.

 

Fraud prevention via SAS services

Unfortunately, the more data-driven we’ve become as a society, the more vulnerable we are to external and criminal threats. Countless organisations all around the world have fallen victim to activities with criminal intent, resulting in losses reaching millions of dollars. Consequently, to combat these threats, many organisations spend an equivalent amount in adopting preventative technologies and measures. From infrastructure costs to testing and development, fraud prevention systems can be very expensive.

Fortunately, by using all that data and information flowing into your SAS environment, you’ll be able to identify suspicious activity as it is happening in real-time and prioritise your investigations accordingly. Gone are the days where you need to be reactive as opposed to proactive. Expert SAS services and consultants will provide you with the necessary direction/insights you need to successfully achieve this.

 

Analytics-driven insights for successful decision-making

With businesses operating in both versatile and volatile environments, the value of good decision-making cannot be overstated. Many organisations are aware of the value of data-backed decisions but one thing we see quite often is that, often times, the wrong data is used. For businesses that use SAS software, SAS services can be incredibly useful in helping them segment their customers/clients into specific groups, identify expenses and where they’re making losses, and foreseeing how future trends may play out.

Collectively, these insights can help business leaders make the right decisions that deliver the most value?

 

If you would like to know more about our SAS services, our company and our work with SAS, in addition to how you can leverage our SAS administration, installation, and hosting services, feel free to reach out to us or stay tuned to this feed.

Ansible for SAS configuration management

SAS installation and environment configuration management can be an incredibly complex process that comprises multiple configuration options. These options have the ability to affect every aspect of an analytics environment and SAS configuration management, from performance to security. With the help of expert SAS installers and administrators, many organisations leveraging SAS software are often provided with the perfect environment – optimised and built to deliver an analytics platform they need.

What goes wrong? A lot of the operations and procedures that are conducted during the installation phase are documented externally – either on spreadsheets or separate documents. Therefore, as time goes by, administrators make changes to configuration files, updates are implemented, and the overall operating system experiences changes, these changes break from the initial configuration. What we see happening in this situation is the SAS environment drifting away from its original, perfect form. This is precisely where Ansible can come into play.

Before we dive into that, however, let’s first take a look at what encompasses a true SAS configuration. These insights will give you a clearer perspective as to why automated and streamlined SAS configuration management is so important.

 

Why is SAS configuration management so important within your SAS environment?

The important thing to keep in mind is that, if used correctly, your SAS environment is going to be constantly evolving. From regular updates to various internal administrative tweaking, it’s normal for any SAS environment and configuration to change over time. The problem with this is that in many instances, these changes occur in a decentralised manner, which results in a disconnect between an environment’s initial configuration versus where it is right now.

To understand why this is so critical, you need to look at the three deployment phases that a SAS environment goes through – prerequisite determination, installation and deployment, and ultimately the configuration phase.

From making sure you have the right users created with the right permissions on groups, along with the right disk space at the prerequisite phase to actually completing the required manual tasks, installing SAS, and running the SAS Hotfix tool at the deployment stage to finally configuring your environment, setting up your environment is no small task.

Throughout these very complex stages, vital configurations that are critical to the sustainability and existence of a SAS environment are set up. Therefore, to answer our initial question as to why SAS configuration management is so important, poor configuration management can result in the fragmentation of this environment – resulting in inefficiencies and misconfigurations in the long-term. SAS admins need to be on top of this!

 

What is Ansible?

In short and within the context of a SAS environment, our services manager, Cameron Lawson, says it best – “Ansible is an extendable tool, written in Python, that is a scriptable way of managing configurations across multiple hosts – you can run it directly from your laptop, via dedicated hosts, on-premise, multi-clouds (Azure, AWS), or hybrids”.

From SAS installation to day-to-day management, Ansible is something your environment can benefit from significantly. Additionally, while there are many alternatives to Ansible, there are noticeable differences that set it apart.

 

Where does Ansible come in and how does it help?

The main concern about configuration management in a given SAS environment is that, over time, configurations are altered from the original configuration. Therefore if left managed improperly, a SAS configuration can drift away from what it once was. By running Ansible, users and administrators can ensure they maintain the baseline of their original configuration while making changes as required.

Here are three specific ways that Ansible is a major asset for SAS configuration management:

 

Any changes you need to make can be done via Ansible – Unlike initiating changes to your configuration via a random, on-the-go method, Ansible allows SAS admins to do this centrally. The changes made through Ansible are organised and permeated throughout the system – ensuring your configuration remains consistent with its original form.    

Ansible is agent-free – There are many alternatives to Ansible, like Chef. However, one key distinction between Ansible and many of its counterparts is that you wouldn’t have to install an agent on the host that you’re managing to keep the configuration running as required. Ansible uses SSH to communicate with your hosts – essentially leaving no footprint on it. You can just connect to it, perform your tasks, and end the connection.

A combination of simplicity and complexity – For basic environments, you can conveniently run Ansible directly from your laptop. However, for more complex environments, you can typically use a dedicated host – called your an Ansible controller that is Linux or runs on the Linux subsystem for Windows.    

 

We’ve only highlighted three specific aspects that make Ansible an extremely valuable component in SAS configuration management. The good news? There’s so much more.

If you’d like to learn more about Ansible and its many benefits, specifically how it can be used for configuration management of your SAS environment, be sure to join our upcoming webinar. We’ll run you through the entire process and welcome your questions with open arms. In the meantime, if you’d like to know more – don’t hesitate to get in touch!

SAS Installation Services – why should you consider them?

SAS provides a wide array of analytics platforms, applications, and services that can significantly transform the insights organisations gain access to and how they operate. Across the world, SAS software is being leveraged by countless organisations and many of these services are being facilitated by SAS’ vast network of SAS software partners. Among the key service offerings that many organisations rely on to get their SAS environment up and running are SAS installation services.

Why is this so important? Simply put, SAS installation services are essential for businesses that have recently purchased any one of the many SAS software applications. SAS installation services can either be facilitated by SAS directly or by one of its strategic partners spread out across the globe. As a SAS Silver Partner, we too have the unique privilege of working with SAS to provide countless organisations across Australia and other parts of the world with the very best services – this includes SAS installation services.

 

What are the benefits of Selerity’s SAS installation services?

For starters, Selerity has been in operation for a decade and is bolstered by a team of experts that possess many years of experience in architecting and deploying all kinds of SAS software for all types of environments – catering to business both large and small. From our Managing Director, Michael, who worked in SAS Australia for many years, to our implementation and installation personnel, we are proud to have a team of SAS qualified experts that are up-to-date and well-versed in the latest SAS technologies.

Our SAS installation services are designed to cater to all types of business with all kinds of requirements. We understand that the modern landscape of doing business – both locally and globally – requires organisations to leverage a wide array of platforms and services, both in-house and in the cloud. This is why our installation services are able to facilitate anything from setting up a single server Office Analytics environment to a distributed Visual Analytics environment to a complex Grid environment – no matter what your needs may be, our installation services can take care of them for you.

What’s even better with our specialised SAS installation services is that in addition to our fixed options, which you can read about here, we also facilitate customised installation services that are dedicated to addressing an organisation’s specific needs – big or small. Our team understands that not every business within a given industry is identical in how they leverage their analytics, which is why our team commits to working with such organisations and their staff in helping them figure out the best and most optimal way of leveraging their SAS environment.

All of our clients, irrespective of their chosen SAS installation service, are provided with a dedicated account manager whose sole responsibility is to ensure the smooth operation and function of the services provided. To support these dedicated account managers, our previously-mentioned extended team of SAS experts are ready to step in, should the need arise.

 

Selerity’s three SAS installation services

As we’ve already highlighted, Selerity’s SAS installation services are diverse and capable of catering to the various needs of organisations. The service offering is divided into three specific segments – SAS Installation Services for a Remote Single Server Environment, Installation Services for an On-Site Singler Server Environment, and SAS Installation Service for a Remote/On-Site Custom Environment. The illustration below specifies this categorisation of services in detail.

All three services will facilitate complete SAS software installation of the respective applications purchased by the organisation. Additionally, all organisations leveraging our services will gain access to our complementary SAS Hot Fix Analysis service, SAS Lev1 configuration, and initial environment tuning. What’s unique about the remote single server installation service is that it is available to organisations all around the world – not just in Australia (where our core team is based). Clients who are interested in our customised installation services can also benefit from remote installation, however, this is dependent on their specific requirements.

 

With a decade’s worth of experiencing operating as a SAS partner, in addition to countless years of shared SAS experience among our team members, our position as a SAS installation services provider both here in Australia and beyond is constantly being leveraged by many organisations. Through our services and our role as a Silver partner, we have enabled several of our clients to benefit from significant savings – sometimes in the range of millions of dollars. If you would like to know more about our SAS installation services, our company and our work with SAS, in addition to how you can leverage our other SAS administration and hosting services, feel free to reach out to us or stay tuned to this feed.