We previously looked at SAS Grid Manager for Hadoop, which brings workload management, accelerated processing, and scheduling to a Hadoop environment. This was introduced with the m3 maintenance release of SAS v9.4. M3 also introduced support for using…
Tag: BI
NOTE: Visual Analytics V7.3 Has Arrived
Maintenance release 15w33 of SAS v9.4 arrived in August and it included a new version of Visual Analytics – version 7.3. This new release doesn’t offer significant new features over its previous releases but I did notice that Visual Analytics Viewer’s …
NOTE: HTML 5 is in VA Hub Already!
Aside from comments about my SAS Enterprise Guide vs SAS Studio article, Metacoda’s Michelle Homes (@HomesAtMetacoda) was quick to write a comment about my Flash & SAS Visual Analytics (VA) article and to point out that HTML5 is already an option f…
More Flash in Chrome for Less Power … and the HTML5 Migration
If you use one of SAS’s web interfaces you’ll be a great fan of the flexibility and usability of the user interface. And those capabilities are probably provided by Adobe Flash. Your browser is running the Flash plug-in.
But Flash has one or two downsides, principally its tendency to use lots of CPU cycles which in-turn uses lots of battery power. Not a problem maybe if you’re hooked to the mains, but not good on a laptop of mobile phone/tablet.
If you use the Chrome browser you’ll be pleased to hear that Google are improving Chrome’s power consumption when Flash is running. When you’re on a webpage that runs Flash, Chrome will intelligently pause content, e.g. Flash animations, that aren’t central to the webpage, while keeping central content (like a video) playing without interruption. If Chrome accidentally pause something you were interested in, you can just click it to resume playback. This update significantly reduces power consumption, allowing us to do analytics on-the-go for longer before having to hunt for a power outlet.
This feature was enabled by default on Chrome’s desktop Beta channel in June, and will be rolling out soon to everyone else on Chrome desktop.
Looking longer-term, SAS are replacing their use of Flash with HTML5. Whilst the use of Flash requires a plug-in from Adobe, HTML5 is supported by all modern browsers out-of-the-box, with no need for any plug-in. The majority of web sites and vendors are migrating to HTML5 due to its net neutrality and power-consumption benefits. SAS Studio already uses HTML5; Visual Analytics and Visual Statistics currently use Flash. We can expect a migration to HTML5, perhaps starting with the VA hub this summer, which will probably be complete next year.
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SAS BI Training Online
Hey All…One of my friends wanted to post this for him…He would like to provide SAS BI training online for a fee…He would provide SAS BI material and Lab access online…Any body interested?…Please email sastechiesblog@gmail.com for more details…
Business Intelligence (BI) Evolution
I recently stumbled upon an interesting series of papers from IBM. There’re entitled Breaking Away With Business Analytics and Optimisation. The informative and deep-thinking series talks about the need for data and good analytical processes, but it al…
NOTE: Thoughts on Lineage
I got quite a lot of interested feedback on the BI Lineage post I made last week. My post highlighted a most informative article from Metacoda’s Paul Homes.
Paul himself commented on my post and offered an additional tip. Here’s what Paul said:
I agree it would be nice if BI developers could do their own scans without relying on unrestricted admins to do them ahead of time. This would be similar to how DI developers can do their own impact analysis for DI content in SAS Data Integration Studio. Ideally, as with DI, they could be done dynamically, without having to do a scan and have a BI Lineage custom repository to store them in.
In the meantime, one tip I’d suggest to make it easier for the BI developers, is that BI Lineage scans can also be scheduled. An unrestricted admin can schedule a scan, at a high level in the metadata tree, to be done every night for example.
A useful tip indeed. Thanks Paul.
Follow me on Twitter: @aratcliffeuk
See an audiovisual recording on my SAS Global Forum 2013 paper Visual Techniques for Problem Solving and Debugging
2014, The Year of Personal Data
If 2013 was the year of wearable, personal devices then 2014 will be the year of personal data. In 2013 we saw a huge rise in popularity of wearable devices for measuring steps walked, distance travelled, pulse, calories consumed, and a lot more beside…