Item: SAS Data Management
Rating: 9
Author: Donald Wildeboer

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SAS Data Integration Studio is being used for one view of all our data across the organization. Pulling from our Oracle and SQL Servers the data is described in a fashion that users can know what they are looking at with only a little bit of effort. It also pulls from our major vendors' platforms, pulling both the data or metadata from their systems.

Pros and Cons

With SAS Data Integration Studio it doesn't matter to users where the data is originally from it all is presented in a consistent manner.
The SAS Data Integration Studio is fairly reliable it usually works well.
The visual design of reports our users even describe as fun.

Sometimes parts of the data are not available, although this is generally because it is connected to so many different systems.
Price, it's not the cheapest software, however the value for dollars spent does seem to be good.
Sometimes all the different systems and platforms and folders and so forth get a bit overwhelming for new users.

Return on Investment

We have more users who can connect to the many different data sources.
Our users do have existing SAS programming knowledge and that can carry over.
Business functions are starting to rely on SAS Data Integration Studio work product shortly after introduction.

Alternatives Considered

Base SAS and Microsoft Systems Management Server

Because SAS Data Integration Studio is the third party it seems to work equally well with all our systems. That is to say that it doesn't really work better with Microsoft or Oracle but really just seems to work equally well with all of them. It has a very powerful back-end that allows us to transform and load our data quickly and efficiently programmer time wise.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Systems Management Server, Oracle Access Management, SAS Data Management Platform

Likelihood to Recommend

When data is in a system that needs a complex transformation to be usable for an average user. Such tasks as data residing in systems that have very different connection speeds. It can be integrated and used together after passing through the SAS Data Integration Studio removing timing issues from the users' worries. A part that is perhaps less appropriate is getting users who are not familiar with the source data to set up the load processes.

Trustworthy and Powerful

Overall Satisfaction with SAS Data Integration Studio