Text mining log files
Posted by Oleg Solovyev on Dec 13, 2009
The problem described in this article was solved during the DWH optimization project. At the beginning of the project the DWH was too slow and users often complained that it takes too much time to execute a query. We have started DWH optimization with the development of a set of indexes. There were very few indexes at that time.
One should create indexes for those tables that are read most often. The problem is that many SAS DBA’s don’t know how often the tables are queried. We also had neither data schema nor lists of users and tables that users have access to.
Pass-Through Facility
Posted by Oleg Solovyev on Oct 8, 2009
Recently I have found a troublesome bug in a pass-through facility (PTF). PTF allows one to connect to remote DB, to write code in its language and to send it to remote DB for execution. After execution the results are sent back to SAS. Therefore you can access all the features of the remote DB language as well as to the stored procedures. For instance once we used PTF and stored procedure to get history of accounts’ balances from the Automatic Banking System DB and improved data quality in the Data Warehouse.
SAS products overview
Posted by Oleg Solovyev on Jun 6, 2009
Before discussing SAS software let’s consider two terms that SAS is actively using describing its software. The terms are “product” and “solution”. “Product” is the irreducible software that performs one particular function. For instance products are: DBMS’s, clients’ for DBMS, web portals, etc. “Solution” is a set of products that automates process in a particular business field. SAS for instance has solutions for banking, Telco, insurance, etc. As a rule, solutions contain predefined database schema, user interface and reports optimized for a particular task.
