CARY – Building on a partnership announced with Microsoft in 2020, SAS today disclosed it is offering its analytics platform to customers through Microsoft’s cloud known as Azure.
Azure is one of the world’s largest cloud platforms. The SAS analytics platform known as Viya is described by SAS as “a cloud-enabled, in-memory analytics engine that provides quick, accurate and reliable analytical insights. Elastic, scalable and fault-tolerant processing addresses the complex analytical challenges of today, while effortlessly scaling for the future.”
“SAS Viya helps organizations see their data, customers and operations in new ways that encourage confident decision making,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight in a statement. “Leading organizations like Hanesbrands, Mercy, Banco Bradesco and Qualitas Insurance Company rely on SAS Viya each day. Organizations expect to accelerate innovation and reduce costs when they operationalize analytics.”
Jim Goodnight plays reporter: Watch him quiz Microsoft CEO about SAS deal
Goodnight and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed their partnership in a video (linked above).
“The partnership we have with SAS has helped our customers accelerate growth and expand their digital transformation initiatives” said Casey McGee, Vice President of Global ISV Sales at Microsoft. “We’re excited about this latest innovation of SAS Viya which provides a seamless customer experience with Microsoft Azure and will bring the power of analytics to our customers, across industries, enabling them to make business decisions faster and more effectively in a cloud experience that’s unique to SAS and Microsoft.”
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Customers can now “stand up” SAS analytics in the cloud “with ease” and “run them reliably,” according to SAS.
An executive from research firm Gartner was quoted by SAS in the announcement as praising the new agreement.
“Among analytics providers, SAS is a recognized leader for reimagining the way analytics and machine learning are consumed so users realize optimal results that solve business challenges faster with more accuracy,” said Ritu Jyoti, Program Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Research at IDC. “This iteration of the SAS Viya platform gives users at all levels of an organization an agile, powerful advanced machine learning engine to help master the complex data that’s in cloud environments.”
