Date:         Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:26:51 -0600
Reply-To:     Alan Churchill <savian001@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Alan Churchill <savian001@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Linux and/or Windows Server
Comments: To: John Seibel <jcscomd@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <200810301401.m9UAkeg1022363@malibu.cc.uga.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

I would investigate what the underlying bottleneck you are hitting on the
Windows server (I/O, memory, CPU) and see if you can't address that. I don't
think it is as simple as saying SAS will run faster on Linux. It depends on
the hardware and what else is going on.

Alan

Alan Churchill
Savian
www.savian.net


-----Original Message-----
From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of John
Seibel
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 8:02 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Linux and/or Windows Server

We are currently running one license of SAS 9.1.3 on a single-processor
Windows server (2003 Standard Edition) and we are contemplating adding
another SAS license. We currently have 3 programmers running SAS off of this
system and it works fine for shorter interactive work.  However when one or
more longer running and larger SAS batch jobs are running it slows down
quite a bit.

We have recently have gained access to a 10 processor Linux hub and wonder
if we should add a Linux license instead of another Windows Server license.
 Our current thought is that we would use the Windows version to build and
debug code (and do smaller analyzes - we are primarily a statistical shop),
and use the Linux license for the larger/longer (multi-day) batch jobs.  We
are leaning in this direction as we like the Windows interface for the
debugging and suspect SAS will run faster on the Linux platform for the
batch jobs.

My specific questions are:  1) can SAS on Linux be run interactively in a
manner similar to Windows so maybe it makes the most sense to switch to one
or two Linux licenses?, and 2) do SAS jobs on Linux typically run faster
than on a SAS server?

Any other insights (especially relative cost$ of 2 Windows licenses vs one
Windows + one Linus) are more than welcome.  We are just beginning the
process so basic ideas on just what to research (I'm googling the internet
in general and searching SAS-L in particular), how to test performance would
also be appreciated.

Thank you for reading this long post,

John