Introduction to Advantages of SAS

SAS is a statistical software package offered by the SAS organization for data analytics implementations. SAS accepts several input data sources such as flat files, databases, and other applications. SAS supports its proprietary language known as SAS programming for complex data processing. It is a scalable software that can manage a very high volume of data for analytics and has very good enterprise support for data governance and security. SAS provides build-in features for several data processing through its Graphical user interface(GUI). SAS has high-quality machine learning and output generation features for data analytics. SAS is an industry-leading tool for analytics services.

Top 9 Advantages of SAS

Below is a list of the advantages of SAS explained in detail,

1. Easy to Understand and Learn

SAS has a very simple and easily understandable syntax.
Anybody without prior programming knowledge can easily learn SAS programming language easily as its syntax is that simple.
SAS coding includes simple and basic statements.
SAS language helps the user to solve complex issues, which were impossible before.
It is more like commanding a machine to carry out some specific tasks.

2. Easily Debuggable

SAS is an easily understandable programming language due to its simple syntax.
The process of debugging is very effective and simple in the SAS language.
The log window of the SAS tool displays all the errors and warnings clearly so that it can be corrected on the go.

3. Large Database Management Ability

SAS has extensive capability in managing large databases more easily and more effectively.
Right choices can be made by adding new and managing enormous data volumes.

4. High Data Security

SAS is one of the major business analytics tools used by most of the enterprises in the market today.
SAS provides high levels of security for the company’s data.
Data cannot be extracted from SAS without a proper license even if it’s for official purposes.
Manipulation of data is impossible with the data security provided by the SAS tool.
This is the main reason for the wide popularity of SAS in the business world.
SAS is professionally favored over so many other analytical languages including R programming language.
The popularity of R is also because it’s an open-source tool. And because of which the data security cannot be guaranteed in R.

5. Proper Customer Care Services

Proper customer supports are being offered to SAS that belongs to various organizations.
It can be regarded as an absolute organization for analyzing SAS with immense customer support.
SAS can only be altered by the SAS organization as it is not an open-source tool.
All sorts of customer issues are handled well by SAS customer support.

6. Thoroughly Evaluated Algorithms

All the implemented algorithms in SAS are thoroughly analyzed, tested, and verified by the SAS developers.
Before the official release, all the versions of SAS are intensively tested and verified in a well-managed environment.
These testing and verifications are feasible only because SAS is not open-source software.

7. Astounding Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Statistical analysis was made much easier by SAS language for normal people who are not programmers.
SAS offers an astonishing Graphical User Interface for developers.
SAS GUI provides numerous tools like plots, graphs, and a very flexible library too.

8. Accurate Output

The development of SAS occurred over a long span of time.
It offers accurate and well-formatted output which is easily understandable.

9. Huge Job Opportunities

The job possibilities in SAS are very high, as it was being used by numerous enterprises for such a long time.
SAS has become more like an essential to begin an analytics profession for the developers.
It is very for a SAS professional to master Python and R.
SAS has become the leader of the analytics market over the years.

Disadvantages of SAS

Below is a list of the disadvantages of sas explained in detail,

1. Not an Open-Source

SAS is not that quick as compared to R in implementing new machine learning related algorithms.
This is due to the fact that R programming language is an open-source tool and SAS language is rather a closed-source software.
Being an open-source tool R can be operated by anyone, unlike SAS which works in a much restricted and protected environment.
SAS algorithms are not open for common public usage and are only available in licensed versions.
Moreover, SAS is transparently unavailable for research purposes for the public, unlike the R programming language.

2. Highly-Priced

One of the crucial disadvantages of SAS is its high cost.
It is an absolute software in its closed environment.
SAS functions and applications cannot be accessed publicly without proper licenses.
Because of all these reasons, it is highly expensive.

3. Poor Graphic Representation

Even though SAS has an amazing GUI, R has a better and advanced graphic representation.
R has a much compatible graphic representation.
Compared to SAS, R has diverse graphic representation options.

4. Tougher than R

SAS follows a procedural programmatic approach compared to R.
Lines of code in SAS is a lot more than in R.
Applications of the latest technologies like machine learning and statistical learning are very easy in R compared to that of SAS.
Packages that are highly expensive in SAS are offered for free in R.
Packages such as text mining, serial time formatting, etc are highly expensive in SAS as compared to R programming language.

5. Difficulty in Text Mining

The extraction of useful pieces of information from text data is known as text mining.
R offers text mining for free of cost, but text mining in SAS is very expensive.
It is like decrypting a code that is in the form of a text.
It helps in making proper decisions from the information which you decode from the text.
Text conversion is done to create useful data for making proper decisions and proper analysis.

Conclusion

In this article of Advantages of SAS, we had a walk through over both advantages and disadvantages of SAS language. SAS is very popular among big enterprises as it gives high levels of security compared to R which is popular among freelancers and it’s not as secure as SAS.