Coding canvas, SAS Viya Workbench tools up AI model developers
Known for its technology portfolio spanning AI, data analytics and software toolsets that impact the full modern enterprise IT stack, SAS this year announced expanded capabilities in its SAS Viya data and AI platform.
New tools this year include the general availability of SAS Viya Workbench.
Targeted at developers and AI modelers (not always a formalised and separate job description and more usually a role taken on by software developers with a leaning towards data science and AI), Viya Workbench is a self-service, on-demand compute environment for conducting data preparation, exploratory data analysis and developing analytical and machine learning models.
The technology itself is a lightweight developer canvas designed to facilitate rapid SAS or Python coding in a cloud-native, scalable environment.
Experimentation & exploration
With this use of the term ‘canvas’ SAS says this service can be used for experimentation and exploration.
Viya Workbench allows developers and modelers to work in the language of their choice (that choice is initially SAS and Python) with R slated to become available by the end of 2024.
Engineered with a flexible interface, Viya Workbench offers two development environment options – Jupyter Notebook/JupyterLab and Visual Studio Code.
The company says that tapping into SAS analytical procedures (PROCs) and native Python APIs within Viya Workbench accelerates the development of high-performance AI models.
Custom Python libraries
Additionally, with custom Python libraries – that happen to be unique to Viya Workbench – software engineers are said to be able to improve speed and performance with minimal changes to a developer’s existing Python program.
Viya Workbench is a flexible, scalable and efficient development environment that is on-demand, self-provisioning and self-terminating with minimal IT support. The dedicated analytical environment features customisable CPU/GPU compute power to match the needs of the project.
Models and other results can be used in SAS Viya for data management, governance and operational deployment.
“The many challenges developers face aren’t just minor annoyances – they are obstacles that prevent questions from being answered and work from getting done,” said Jared Peterson, senior vice president of engineering, SAS. “Viya Workbench provides maximum flexibility and results by allowing developers to use their language and Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of choice, tailor compute power up or down to meet the needs of the project and ultimately boost their productivity and efficiency. They can work faster, be more creative and take more risks – which, let’s be honest, is not only what’s expected but it makes the job more fun.”
Viya Workbench will initially be available through the Amazon AWS Marketplace, with future plans for additional supported cloud providers and a software-as-a-service deployment option.
Cutting-edge cloud compute
Looking at the business case for Viya Workbench, SAS insists that it’s a strong argument i.e. AI developers and modelers want to work with modern, open source packages and cutting-edge cloud compute, but they are also under pressure to deliver fast results and manage costs.
In addition, they want prebuilt, scalable infrastructures that allow them to focus on creating, innovating, iterating and testing their work.
