Products & Solutions / Enterprise Data Access

SAS/ACCESS® Interface to Greenplum

A convenient way to access and use data stored in EMC Greenplum

EMC Greenplum's database appliance manages, stores and facilitates the analysis of petabytes of data. Users can take advantage of Greenplum's "shared-nothing" MPP (massively parallel processing) architecture, high-performance parallel dataflow engine and advanced gNet interconnect technology for increased scalability.

SAS/ACCESS software is the foundation of SAS enterprise data management capabilities. It reads, writes and updates data regardless of the native database or platform. SAS/ACCESS Interface to Greenplum is an out-of-the-box solution that provides direct connectivity between SAS and Greenplum database appliances, going beyond ODBC's standard interfacing capabilities.

Benefits

  • Integrate data stored in Greenplum with data from other sources.
  • Access data directly, easily and securely with native interfaces.
  • Gain faster performance and reduce network traffic.
  • Minimize data movement.
  • Support both technical and business users.

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Features

  • Seamless and transparent data access
  • Flexible query language support
  • Performance features
  • Metadata integration
  • Optimization

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Benefits

  • Integrate data stored in Greenplum with data from other sources. SAS/ACCESS engines provide seamless and transparent read/write/update access to more than 60 data sources, including relational and nonrelational databases, PC files and data warehouse appliances. SAS Data Surveyors are specialized engines specifically for accessing enterprise applications. This enables you to integrate data stored in your EMC Greenplum database appliance with other data and easily use all of your enterprise data with SAS Analytics to gain new insights for your organization.
  • Access data directly, easily and securely with native interfaces. No SQL expertise or custom coding of extractions is required. You get a high degree of control over data security because SAS/ACCESS honors and augments the native security of the target data source. SAS enables a transparent approach by making data sources appear as though they are native to SAS, which facilitates interaction with SAS procedures, the SAS DATA step and SAS solutions. In addition, users are also able to interact directly with the data source using native data source capabilities.
  • Gain faster performance and reduce network traffic. SAS/ACCESS Interface to Greenplum provides the ability to push down complex Greenplum-specific SQL queries, joins and functions for target data source processing. This minimizes data movement and takes advantage of Greenplum's MPP architecture. The SAS/ACCESS interface also supports Greenplum's high-performance bulk-load utilities, providing the ability to rapidly load data into Greenplum from a variety of sources, including flat files and other relational database sources.
  • Minimize data movement. A number of SAS software's most popular procedures are push-down-enabled for Greenplum. This means that SAS processing can be translated into SQL queries that are sent directly to the database for processing rather than bringing the data back to SAS for processing. This potentially increases system performance by pushing data processing to the most appropriate resource and by minimizing data movement.
  • Support both technical and business users. These out-of-the-box access solutions require minimal training and knowledge transfer. Business users will typically use SAS reporting and analytical capabilities, which can seamlessly access third-party data. Technical users may also access the data transparently, or they can interact directly with the data sources using SQL or other database-specific query languages.

Features

Seamless and transparent data access
  • Broad coverage of data sources and platforms enables you to integrate data from across your organization.
  • Includes the option to access data without detailed knowledge of the database or SQL. The appropriate SQL queries are generated from the interface and passed to the data source for execution.
  • Includes the option to use SQL if desired.
  • Has the ability to create federated queries that span multiple data sources. The queries are surfaced as a database object that can be used with all SAS solutions.
  • Makes use of security mechanisms inherent in the database.
Flexible query language support
  • A transparent access option surfaces data with minimal knowledge of the data or the SQL needed for access.
  • A custom SQL option lets users create their own SQL statements or modify automatically generated SQL.
  • Mapping SAS statements or functions to database-specific statements or functions enables all appropriate SQL statements to be processed directly inside the database, providing the best possible performance.
Performance features
  • Multithreaded read interface uses threaded kernel technology and native APIs.
  • Data read and writes are highly optimized with buffering, compressions, threading, etc.
  • Includes support for automatic partitioning.
  • Provides support for Greenplum's external tables interface, including external Hadoop HDFS files.
  • Provides push-down optimization for popular SAS procedures, including PROC FREQ, PROC RANK, PROC REPORT, PROC SORT, PROC SUMMARY, PROC MEANS and PROC TABULATE.
  • Has the ability to directly control join-processing capabilities.
  • Includes temporary table support:
    • Create a temporary table that can be accessed by multiple SAS processes. This provides performance gains when the same data is required for different steps in a session.
    • Use temporary tables for heterogeneous joins.
  • Includes transparent support for bulk-load options. There is no need to understand different bulk loaders. Just set the SAS bulk-load option to "yes" and SAS uses the most appropriate capabilities.
Metadata integration
  • Database metadata can be accurately maintained within the SAS Metadata Repository.
  • Data jobs are registered via the SAS Metadata Server so they can be used in a variety of SAS solutions. Register data once; then use it in many places.
Optimization
  • Supports native storage options, native data types, temporary table support and table partitioning.
  • Translates native database data to the appropriate SAS data type for optimized processing.
  • Includes national language support.

System Requirements

Host Platforms
  • HP/UX on Itanium: 11iv3 (11.31)
  • IBM AIX on POWER architectures: 6.1 and 7.1
  • Linux (32-bit): Novell SuSE 10 and 11; RHEL 5 and 6
  • Linux x64 (64-bit): Novell SuSE 10 and 11; RHEL 5 and 6
  • Microsoft Windows (32-bit): Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista *, Windows 7**, Windows Server 2003 family, Windows Server 2008 family
  • Microsoft Windows on x64 (64-bit): Windows XP Professional for x64, Windows Vista* for x64, Windows 7** for x64, Windows Server 2003 family for x64, Windows Server 2008 family for x64
  • Solaris on SPARC: Version 10 Update 8
  • Solaris on x64 (x64-86): Version 10 Update 8

* NOTE: Windows Vista supported editions are: Enterprise, Ultimate and Business.
** NOTE: Windows 7 supported editions are: Enterprise, Ultimate and Professional.

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