From The Mainframe To The Sun To The World! Carmen Williams Rose Keeley Carol Drechsel University of North Dakota Presented at Midwest SAS Users Group September 2003

The Goal Automate the way we generate and report our daily student registration activity to the web.

SAS/IntrNet Project SAS/IntrNet implemented through the Higher Education Computer Network Principle users located at the University of North Dakota (UND) and North Dakota State University (NDSU) Steps involved the coordination of mainframe programs to the Sun (server) to the web

Project Overview Developed out of the need to “automate” SAS output to the web Worked with our ITSS SAS user consultant along with another institution Once approved to “move forward” in the proposal, received a more specific list of product needs and costs from SAS (educational prices) Upon final approval, timelines (aggressive) were set up for implementation

Project Overview con’t Total Team Effort Install ourselves? Technology framework Training and learning the new system Life after the consultants leave

Implementation Timelines Installs to do prior to SAS consultants arriving Example programs sent to SAS Hardware needs assessed Software needs assessed – We were only at version 6.09 at this time End users needed to learn PC-SAS & version 8.2

Total Team Effort All assessments, installs, other preparation took a total team effort – Mainframe support teams, security, UNIX support teams, client support consultants, and the end users all had to commit their time and knowledge – Very intense (but for short time)

Installation We chose to have the SAS products installed (under the Risk Mitigation – Pilot Implementation solution offered by SAS -for government & academic customers) – One expert mainframe consultant – One expert UNIX consultant Daily schedule – Conference first thing in the morning Make sure everyone was on “same page” Went through examples to understand process and final product – Ended each day with a brief overview/demo of what was accomplished that day

Technology framework IBM Mainframe MP H50 with RAMAC 9393 Disk running OS390 V2.10 loaded with Base SAS, SAS/GRAPH, SAS/STAT, and the new module SAS/CONNECT Sun Enterprise Station - Model 220R, dual SPARC Ultra-60 processors 450 MHZ running Solaris 5.8 (64 bit) OS – This one machine (server) maintains the Web Server running Apache 1.3 and the Application Broker, as well as the SAS Server running SAS 8.02 and the Application Server. The SAS/IntrNet Application Dispatcher provides the Application Broker on the Web Server and the Application Server on the SAS Server

Training and learning the new system Following the installation, the products were working…. – Gave us a little time to re-group and take some of the new features in – We had some problems with earlier versions (formats, password protection) which needed extra time to fix Consultants came back after one month – Worked on the applications more – Provided some hands-on training Six days of public training was also purchased Practice, practice, practice

Demonstration

Report Selections

Drop Down Box Selections

Static Report #1

Static Report #2

MDDB Report Viewer Fictitious Data

Fictitious Data

Life after the consultants The three of us met regularly – Went through all of the jobs – Documented the steps Took advantage of the public (web) training Discussed at our regional meeting (Red River Valley SAS Users Group) (re)formed a UND SAS Users Group

SAS/IntrNet Project Wrap-up (con’t) Pros – Two very capable and qualified SAS consultants writing the SAS code – SAS consultants worked with the technical personnel to install necessary products – With the consultants on campus it required the attention of the “team” to act when called upon and drop everything and come to the table (note – pro & con!) – Now that we have “the code” and everything is working well, it will be much easier to write other programs – Have had excellent assistance from the SAS consultants for follow-up questions

SAS/IntrNet Project Wrap-up Cons – Everyone involved needed to be “on call” for the two weeks that the consultants were on- campus – We did receive a lot of documentation… but it’s never enough – The training was very intense.. not enough handouts, and at times difficult to follow and document

Thank you for attending!

University of North Dakota For questions, please contact: – Carmen Williams, Institutional Research – Rose Keeley, Info Tech Systems & Services – Carol Drechsel, Institutional Research