Base SAS: SAS^® Metadata Server

What is SAS Metadata Server? SAS Metadata Server provides an open, central repository for all metadata that is created and required by an organization to support its enterprise intelligence strategy.

Why is SAS Metadata Server important? Unless organizations operate with a single source of integrated metadata (information about data sources, content, business rules and access authorizations), it is a struggle to deliver consistent information and intelligence. The SAS Metadata Server delivers the power to integrate, share, centrally manage and leverage metadata across entire organizations.

For whom is SAS Metadata Server designed? SAS Metadata Server is designed for IT systems administrators looking to reduce the number of metadata silos and the costs of maintaining them to support an enterprise intelligence strategy.

Key Benefits

• Simplifies systems support. The SAS Metadata Server enables organizations to leverage the benefits of metadata easily and consistently. This “data about data” contains valuable information on the source and format of the data, the changes it has undergone and how the data should be used.
• Ensures data integrity. The entire end-to-end intelligence creation process can be documented on a metadata level using SAS Metadata Server. Repositories can be promoted from development to test to production, ensuring that users have access to the repository that meets accepted corporate quality standards.
• Lowers cost of ownership. Because multiple data sources are supported through a common metadata layer, you can easily leverage existing database infrastructures.

Key Features

• The SAS Metadata Model is a set of metadata types used for saving metadata on the server. The model is the center of the SAS Open Metadata Architecture and defines the common semantics for the metadata types.
• The SAS Open Metadata Interface is an application programming interface (API) that provides access to the SAS Metadata Server from a variety of environments, including Java, C, COM/DCOM and SAS. XML is used as the metadata transport format. The interface supports browsing, updating and deleting metadata.
• Metadata management. The SAS Metadata Server is managed from the Java-based SAS Management Console included with Base SAS software. Administrators can create and manage metadata repositories, control the metadata server and interact with running repository servers; define and configure SAS servers and connections; define and manage users, groups and permissions; and control access to metadata, relational data and OLAP resources.
• Authorization and administration. The authorization facility, a subsystem of the SAS Metadata Server, renders decisions on who can take a specific action on a computing resource. The facility controls access to metadata objects on the server. It also controls access to what actions users can take on the resources described by the metadata objects.
• Change management. The Open Metadata Interface provides an optional change management facility for controlling and tracking concurrent access to metadata.
• Openness, bridges and interoperability. SAS adheres to the Object Management Group’s Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) as the interoperability and interchange standard. An alliance between SAS and Meta Integration Technology Inc. (MITI) enables SAS to provide bridges for sharing and exchanging metadata with more than 40 design tool and repository vendors.
• Importing and exporting metadata. Support for the Common Warehouse Metamodel/XML Metadata Interchange (CWM/XML) enables you to import metadata from a variety of sources.

For a complete list of key benefits and features, refer to the  SAS Metadata Server fact sheet .   

SAS Metadata Server is a component of  Base SAS software .