| Anyone that has followed the product offerings from | | | | (also provided as part of Integration Technologies). |
| SAS in recent years knows that they have a | | | | Once these pieces are installed one can easily take an |
| comprehensive, end-to-end Business Intelligence | | | | existing Enterprise Guide project, convert it to a Stored |
| package known as the EBI Suite or it's little brother the | | | | Process and expose it to the masses through a |
| BI Suite. These products offer a great business | | | | web-based interface. Security concerns? Don't sweat |
| intelligence platform with all of the OLAP, Web | | | | it. All of these stored processes can be fully secured |
| Reporting, Analytic and Portal tools that any fortune | | | | via the SAS management console, a standard feature |
| 500 company could ever need. | | | | of version 9. |
| But what about smaller businesses? Those that love | | | | Want to maintain a few base reports but allow lots of |
| SAS but have a limited budget. Those that just need a | | | | flavors? You can create run-time parameters for the |
| way to automate and web-enable some existing base | | | | stored process and the parameters automatically |
| SAS or Enterprise Guide reports but don't have a | | | | show up as drop-down boxes, date-selection dialogs |
| need for the heft of the BI suite (or its price tag). Well, | | | | or pick lists automatically. Let me repeat - there is |
| the answer may have been sitting right under your | | | | absolutely no html or Java to code. All you have to do |
| nose. | | | | is convert an Enterprise Guide report to a stored |
| A common set of non-BI products that SAS offers | | | | process through an easy-to-use wizard and you're just |
| includes a product called "Integration Technologies". | | | | about done. |
| This product flies so far under the radar and is so | | | | The possibilities for this technology are only limited by |
| frequently misunderstood that you may have it | | | | your imagination. You can allow users to summarize, |
| licensed and don't even know it. Furthermore, even if | | | | slice and dice, create web-based pivot tables all within |
| you know that you have it licensed you may not be | | | | a browser. Users can create interactive graphs, charts |
| leveraging it at all. In almost all default version 9 | | | | and geographic maps that are truly interactive - with |
| installation configurations of non-BI offerings, many | | | | no software required on the desktop. Allow |
| components of Integration Technologies are not even | | | | executives to summarize sales and profits by region, |
| installed! Yes, a nice chunk of your licensing dollars | | | | quarter, product or state. Allow tables to be chosen, |
| may be sitting on a CD in a big ugly binder collecting | | | | filtered and automatically exported to Excel. Let your |
| dust. | | | | data breathe! |
| OK, what are the components of Integration | | | | What's the catch? There is absolutely no catch from a |
| Technologies and how can they help me? Well there | | | | SAS licensing perspective. You may be paying for |
| are many pieces to this product ranging from IOM | | | | powerful software that has never seen the light of |
| servers to APIs that allow interfacing SAS with Java | | | | day. The main obstacle to leveraging this technology is |
| and dot net applications. All of that stuff is cool in itself | | | | a somewhat tricky installation procedure. If installation |
| but the real hidden gem is something called the Web | | | | and configuration are your concern then contact me |
| Infrastructure Kit (WIK). Buried inside the WIK is | | | | through my web-site listed below and I will help get you |
| something called the Stored Process Web Application. | | | | on your way. Free your data! |
| It runs inside a SAS-flavored Tomcat Apache server | | | | |