Running SAS on HCC

This quick start demonstrates how to use a SAS program on HCC resources through the command line, HCC OnDemand, and HCC’s Anvil platform. The sample code and submit scripts can be downloaded from HCC’s job-examples git repository.

SAS is licensed software; users must have access to an existing license via an academic department or unit to use SAS on HCC resources. If you are a current SAS user and would like to arrange for access on HCC machines, please contact hcc-support@unl.edu.

SAS on HCC Clusters

SAS applications can be run on HCC clusters similar to other jobs. Connect to an HCC cluster and make a subdirectory called sas_demo under your $WORK directory. 

In the subdirectory sas_demo, save the SAS code. Here, we include a single demo programs, t_test.sas, to perform a t-test analysis on a small data set.

t_test.sas

Creating a Submit Script

Create a submit script to request one core (default) and 10 minutes run time on the supercomputer. The name of the main program is entered at the last line.

sas.submit

Submit the Job

The job can be submitted through the command sbatch. The job status can be monitored by entering squeue with the -u option.

$ sbatch sas.submit
$ squeue -u <username>

Replace <username> with your HCC username.

Sample Output

The results of the t-test are computed and printed to the .lst file

SAS on HCC OnDemand

On HCC OnDemand, SAS can be accessed via Jupyter Lab Notebook and dedicated SAS Interactive GUI Application, visible for researchers with valid SAS license.

SAS on Jupyter Lab

Launch a Jupyter Lab Notebook session. After the Jupyter Lab Notebook session starts, select SAS from the New dropdown box.

Here, you can run code in the Notebook’s cells. The SAS code is then executed when you click on the “play” icon or press the shift and enter keys simultaneously.

SAS Interactive GUI Application

Launch the Interactive App by selecting SAS from the Interactive Apps drop-down menu at the top of the OnDemand Dashboard page and filling in the parameters needed for your job.

SAS scripts can then be run from the Editor, and the results will be shown in a browser.

SAS on Anvil

SAS can also be run on a Windows 10 instance on Anvil. This allows SAS scripts to be run with a full GUI environment.

Start off creating a Windows 10 SAS instance from the Anvil dashboard. Create an instance and use the image labeled Windows 10 SAS. Once the instance is fully launched, connect to the instance using the retrieved password. After connecting to the instance and logging, SAS can be launched from the Desktop shortcut.


From here, SAS scripts can be run from the Editor at the bottom of the SAS window. Scripts can also be opened from a script file on the Anvil instance.

Executing a script is done by typing run; and clicking Submit. When the script finishes executing, the results will be displayed.