CARY, N.C., Oct. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — For IT teams looking to simplify the deployment and configuration of SAS^® Analytics into the cloud and across the enterprise, SAS for Containers is available now.

Container technology has gained popularity in recent years because it represents an agile, cost-efficient approach for cloud software deployment. According to Forrester Research’s report, Now Tech: Enterprise Container Platforms, Q2 2018, “The success of the Docker and Kubernetes open source projects is driving the phenomenal interest in container-based software. Enterprise container platforms extend and commercialize these components, packaging them for enterprise needs by making container apps easier to build, scale and manage.”

And as artificial intelligence and machine learning gain momentum, the demand for a secure, portable approach to cloud-based deployment grows with it. SAS for Containers allows easy deployment for a variety of select SAS technologies in the cloud. Initial offerings include programmatic access to SAS^® Viya^®, SAS 9.4 and a variety of SAS/ACCESS^® engines.

“We see a surge in the demand for containerizing analytics,” said Shiva Kommareddi, Managing Partner at Core Compete, a global systems integration and consulting company. “With relative ease, we have been able to help clients deploy software like SAS Viya, and they benefit from the elasticity and performance of containers.”

SAS also has established several technology partners in the space, including Domino Data Lab. “SAS and Domino’s mutual customers brought us together, and clients value our partnership,” said Nick Elprin, CEO and co-founder of Domino Data Labs. “With SAS for Containers on Domino, clients can manage their containerized SAS environments alongside open source workloads in a central platform, allowing data science teams to rapidly develop and deploy models, which is critical for those on the journey to become model-driven.”

How do I gain access to SAS^® for Containers?
SAS provides a “recipe” to customers through an open source repository like GitHub where they can construct a container image. They also provide a preconfigured container with specific products that can be deployed right away. Customers have the flexibility to start with a container image of core SAS products and layer in additional software and system requirements specific to their organization.

What are the benefits?
Executing SAS workloads in a more compact, elastic way allows IT organizations to scale and make confident decisions in public and private clouds. SAS for Containers also offers customers:

• Ease. With simplified cloud deployment, IT organizations using SAS for Containers can live the “build once and deploy many” dream.
• Unity. This deployment approach can bring the entire analytics user community together inside an enterprise; data scientists are free to use their preferred interface including Python, R, Lua or SAS.
• Efficiency. SAS for Containers is lightweight and efficient, which makes the use of resources more cost-effective.
• Flexibility. Customers can choose to create their own containers or preconfigured containers. This means each container is right for its assigned task and meets IT guidelines. SAS for Containers supports Docker and Kubernetes for orchestration.

“Our experts are early adopters of technologies that can reshape the business with a keen ability to separate hype from reality,” said Keith Collins, SAS Executive Vice President and CIO. “Although the use of containers is relatively new, we see significant promise in this technology and what it will bring to our industry.”   

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