SAS updates analytics software portfolio to deal with Big Data

SAS has upgraded several key products in its software portfolio so that organisations can process larger volumes of data more quickly.

SAS 9.3 offers greater scalability and performance when processing data, as well as improved forecasting, said the firm.

"We have increased the performance of the analytics software so it can do more than before, faster than before," said Richard Kellett, director of marketing at SAS UK.

SAS will now be able to run faster in third-party databases owing to new "analytics accelerators", Kellett told V3.co.uk.

"Before, the software was limited by how fast it could run models. Now users will be able to gain insight into their business data faster," he said.

The in-database computing boost will first be available to Teradata database users, and then to users of other analytical databases that partner with SAS, which can not yet be announced.

SAS has also upgraded its data mining offerings with enhancements to Model Manager, an administrative tool that automates the process of managing data models.

"We've made it speedier for organisations to run models, so they spend less time building and testing them," said Kellett. "Models made in real time will allow customers like banks to better manage the risk of fraud."

The SAS Forecast Server has been upgraded with a number of new technology components such as "rolling simulators" and "combination models".

"Combination models can generate more accurate forecasts than single models as it applies different families of data models at the same time," Kellett explained.

He added that SAS 9.3 has improved connections with a number of its database partners, such as Oracle, Sybase, Teradata and Greenplum.

Additionally, SAS analytics software will contain more bulk loading capabilities for transferring data between databases, speeding up the process of taking data out of the database for analysis.

"Also, users will find it faster to load data back into the database after the modelling process," said Kellett.

SAS will release more software updates in the coming months targeted specifically at business users.

A Rapid Predictive Modeller will allow companies to create models themselves, Kellett said. The tools will sit on top of the more technical SAS analytics suite, which is still chiefly used by IT professionals.