SAS Data Management vs. SQL Server Integration Services

SAS/Access is well suited for companies who need to manipulate and analyze large databases and data-sets. It does the same thing as SQL, and if you already know basic SAS coding it is easier to pick up. SAS/Access works well with analyzing data from multiple data-sources at once, including large databases stored in external and virtual environments like Hadoop. Data can be easily reassembled from relational databases for use by the user. SAS/Access is not necessary if you are only pulling data from one database that you have the physical file for.

Incentivized

Ideal for daily standard ETL use cases whether the data is sourced from / transferred to the native connectors (like SQL Server) or FTP. Best if the company uses MS suite of tools. There are better options in the market for chaining tasks where you want a custom flow of executions depending on the outcome of each process or if you want advanced functionality like API connections, etc.

Incentivized

• SAS supports the main database connection options that allow you to optimize the performance of your extracts and loads.
• Simplicity of the syntax for a basic connection.
• Ability to configure by an administrator in a BI environment so that all users can benefit from the connection without having to establish it by themselves.

Incentivized

• SSIS works very well pulling well-defined data into SQL Server from a wide variety of data sources.
• It comes free with the SQL Server so it is hard not to consider using it providing you have a team who is trained and experienced using SSIS.
• When SSIS doesn't have exactly what you need you can use C# or VBA to extend its functionality.

Incentivized

• It is a versatile product but sometimes difficult to use due to the very close link with the proprietary programming language where specific knowledge is required.
• Compared to competitors on the market that offer the same functions for the integration perimeter, it is certainly very expensive.
• It is very simple to use when combined with products from the SAS suite, less so it is being used stand-alone or integrated with other well-known brands.

Incentivized

• SSIS memory usage can be quite high particularly when SSI and SQL server are on the same machine
• SSIS is not available on any environment other than Microsoft Windows
• SSIS does not function with any database engine back-end other than Microsoft SQL Server

Incentivized

We are happy with the software and its functionality. As a SAS-shop, DataFlux is a logical choice for complex data integration.

SSIS is responsible for running core business processed managing core business data. It can be managed, improved and expanded using minimal internal resources. It is also able to support all of our current data infrastructure. Replacing SSIS would be time consuming and costly with no apparent ROI.

Incentivized

The main negative point is the use of a non-standard language for customizations, as well as the poor integration with non-SAS systems. However, there is no doubt that it is a high-performance and powerful product capable of responding optimally to certain requirements.

Incentivized

SSIS has a drag and drop based developer interface, so it is relatively straight forward to get started. You can start to get into the weeds pretty quickly as your solution becomes more complex. However, most of the base functions are right in front of you for a developer. You can also set project and solution level parameters, so when you deploy to new environments, you don't have to jump into each package to change your variables and settings. (For example, default directory to ingest flat files).

Incentivized

It worked as expected.

Incentivized

Raw performance is great. At times, depending on the machine you are using for development, the IDE can have issues. Deploying projects is very easy and the tool set they give you to monitor jobs out of the box is decent. If you do very much with it you will have to write into your projects performance tracking though.

Incentivized

With SAS, you pay a license fee annually to use this product. Support is incredible. You get what you pay for, whether it's SAS forums on the SAS support site, technical support tickets via email or phone calls, or example documentation. It's not open source. It's documented thoroughly, and it works.

Incentivized

The support, when necessary, is excellent. But beyond that, it is very rarely necessary because the user community is so large, vibrant and knowledgable, a simple Google query or forum question can answer almost everything you want to know. You can also get prewritten script tasks with a variety of functionality that saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

The implementation may be different in each case, it is important to properly analyze all the existing infrastructure to understand the kind of work needed, the type of software used and the compatibility between these, the features that you want to exploit, to understand what is possible and which ones require integration with third-party tools

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I think SQL Server Integration Services is better suited for on-premises data movement and ADF is more suited for the cloud. Though ADF has more connectors, SQL Server Integration Services is more robust and has better functionality just because it has been around much longer

Incentivized

• The platform enabled us to have a single repository of customers to run campaigns on.
• Feedback from various campaigns is stored in a single database, which makes running A/B analysis easier.
• Helped improve data quality due to SAS Dataflux being a part of the SAS Data Management Platform.

Incentivized

• Without this, we would have to manually update a spreadsheet of our SQL Server inventory
• We would also have poor alerting; if an instance was down we wouldn't know until it was reported by a user
• We only have one other person who uses SQL Server Integration Services , he's the expert. It would fall to me without him and I would not enjoy being responsible for it.

Incentivized