On my Windows Azure trial account I created a large virtual server with Windows Server 2008R2 64-bit and testet it with CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2.
As showen below, the result was quite amazing.
I was later told that storage for a customer on Windows Azure at the first i placed on SSD-disks. Later on the storage is moved away from SSD-disks and placed on a ordinary magnetic spindel disks according to your required workload.
Screenpresso is a good free screen capture tool.
This post shows how it is possible to connect to an SQL-server server/database (PaaS) in Windows Azure from SAS.
First of all you need to create a SQL-server database. When you create an SQL-server database it will also create a virtual server.The servername for the virtual server is the “funny” name eg. aoe8kg2q9w.
It is on this server, that you need to open for the different IP that need access to the SQL-server.
As shown below you go to the Servers-tab and click on the server where you want to change the firewall settings.
On the server you go to the Configure-tab and enter the IP-adress that has to access the SQL-server.
It is possible to get different connection strings for your SQL-database on Azure. As shown below you need to choose ‘View SQL Database connection strings’.
Here you can eg find the connection string for an ODBC connection and use it in your libname statement for SAS.
Now you can connect through SAS. First you make a libname. This has only worked for me when I use one of the new ODBC-drivers for Microsoft SQL-server eg. ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server.
libname azure odbc NOPROMPT=”Driver=ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server;Server=tcp:<SERVERNAME>.database.windows.net,1433;Database=<DATABASE>;Uid=<USERNAME>@<SERVERNAME>;
Pwd=<PASSWORD>;Encrypt=yes;Connection Timeout=30;” schema=<SCHEMA>;
Below I have made an example. Where I copy sashelp.class to my Azure database.
I need to create an identical copy of sashelp.class on Azure.
proc sql;
create table azure.class like sashelp.class;
quit;
I need this copy because Azure needs a clustered index on the table. If you don’t have a clustered index on the table, it is not possible to load data into the table.
proc sql noprint;
connect to odbc (NOPROMPT=”Driver=ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server;Server=tcp:<SERVERNAME>.database.windows.net,1433;Database=<DATABASE>;Uid=<USERNAME>@<SERVERNAME>;
Pwd=<PASSWORD>;Encrypt=yes;Connection Timeout=30;”);
execute (
CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX idxName ON [SCHEMA].[class] ( [Name] ASC )WITH (STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, DROP_EXISTING = OFF, ONLINE = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY] ) by odbc;
disconnect from odbc;
quit;
Now that I have made the clustered index on the table. It is possible to load data into the table.
proc sql;
insert into azure.class
select * from sashelp.class;
quit;
It is possible to set the start folder for SAS in different ways. First of all you can do it in the shortcut to SAS in your operating system. This is done by setting the -SASINITIALFOLDER as shown below.
It is also possible to make changes to your sas9v.cfg file. Where you eg. insert the statement -SASINITIALFOLDER “F:\Projects”
The example below shows one way to do parallel execution of SAS sessions. In the example below two SAS sessions is started in parallel and a third is executed depending on the result of the two session.
Gets the path of the main SAS program that is executed.
%macro GetSASProgramPath;
%qsubstr(%sysget(SAS_EXECFILEPATH),1,%length(%sysget(SAS_EXECFILEPATH))-%length(%sysget(SAS_EXECFILEname))-1);
%mend;
%let SASProgramPath = %GetSASProgramPath;
%put &SASProgramPath;
Starts the first SAS session. %syslput makes it possible to give the SAS session a macrovariable from the main program. In this case it is the path for the SAS program being executed.
wait=no tells SAS not to wait for the SAS session to end before starting the next SAS session.
%sysrput makes it possible to return a macrovariable from a SAS session to the main SAS program. In this cause it whether or not the SAS session executed with og without errors.
option sascmd = “sas”;
signon remote = OneSes;
%syslput _SASProgramPath = &SASProgramPath;
rsubmit process = OneSes wait=no;
%include “&_SASProgramPath\<SOME PROGRAM.SAS>”;
%sysrput FirstSessionError = &syscc;
endrsubmit;
Starts the second SAS session.
option sascmd = “sas”;
signon remote = TwoSes;
%syslput _SASProgramPath = &SASProgramPath;
rsubmit process = TwoSes wait=no;
%include “&_SASProgramPath\<SOME PROGRAM.SAS>”;
%sysrput SecondSessionError = &syscc;
endrsubmit;
The statement below waits for the two sessions above to finnish and executes a SAS program if the two sessions did not fail.
waitfor OneSes TwoSes;
signoff OneSes;
signoff TwoSes;
%macro FinalRun;
%if &FirstSessionError < 5 and &SecondSessionError < 5 %then %do;
%put –== No Errors ==–;
%include “&_SASProgramPath\<SOME PROGRAM.SAS>”;
%end;
%mend;
%FinalRun;
The line below retrives the servername/computername where SAS is executing from an environment variabel in the operating system.
%let servername = %sysget(computername);
This will only work in Windows.