SAS/CONNECT User's Guide

Considerations for Using Data Transfer Services

Depending on the goals of your application, data transfer services may have side effects that conflict with your needs. This section addresses these side effects and offers alternatives to eliminate or minimize them.

Transferring a copy of the data to another file system creates multiple copies of the data. If the remote data is updated frequently, it may not be possible to keep a local copy of the data current enough to be useful. In addition, security restrictions at your site may prohibit multiple copies of the data. In this case, consider using compute services if the amount of data that is involved is large.

If the amount of data is small to medium, RLS allows the processing to take place on the local system and the data to come from a remote source as the execution requests it. Both of these alternatives eliminate the need for multiple copies of data.

Keep in mind that data transfer services are less transparent than RLS. Transferring the data is an explicit step that must be done prior to initiating any local processing. If the volume of data to be accessed is not large and your application requires more transparent access, use RLS.

There may also be situations in which a combination of services is the best choice. For examples of combined services, see Examples of Combining Compute Services and Data Transfer Services and Example of Combining Remote Library Services (RLS) and Data Transfer Services.

To understand the examples in this section, you must be familiar with the syntax for the UPLOAD and DOWNLOAD procedures (described in The UPLOAD Procedure and The DOWNLOAD Procedure).

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