SAS Viya now available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

The SAS® Viya® analytics platform is now available on a pay-as-you-go basis in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace with the click of a button. SAS Viya on Microsoft Azure provides customers around the world with essential data exploration, machine learning, and model deployment analytics. It’s available in a variety of translated languages and includes a comprehensive in-app learning center to help with both initial onboarding and long-term success.

Market research from IDC forecasts that analytics software deployment on public clouds is growing and will match on-premises deployments by 2024. “In this strategic move, SAS makes access to its analytics easier,” said Dan Vesset, Group Vice President, Analytics and Information Management at IDC. “SAS Viya is one of the most comprehensive analytics platforms on the market today. Presenting users with the complete analytics life cycle – from data to a deployed and managed model – available for immediate use and deployment via the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, is key. And offering it with built-in support and training is expected to bring significant productivity benefits to analytics, IT and business groups around the world.”

Comprehensive access, broad language support

SAS Viya is intended to increase analytics access across an organization by incorporating machine learning capabilities that enable all users to increase productivity and collaborate more effectively. Users will have access to the full Viya package, which includes SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Visual Statistics, SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning, and SAS Model Manager, now that SAS Viya is available on Microsoft Azure.

The platform combines programming and low- or no-code options in a single visual interface, allowing users of all skill levels to benefit from best-in-class AI. Data scientists can write code in their preferred languages and techniques thanks to support for both SAS and open source languages such as Python and R.

It’s a new day for SAS

SAS CEO Jim Goodnight said accessing Viya in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace is a fast and easy way to tap into the power of SAS.  

“We’re excited to offer customers a new way to gain access to SAS Viya while continuing to provide all the powerful capabilities our users already know and love,” Goodnight said. “We’ve spent decades building the most comprehensive suite of analytics on the market, with next-generation AI that addresses the complete analytics life cycle. We design and test our software to be the fastest and most productive. And now we’re making it all available with a few clicks in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.” 

Building on the value of the SAS and Microsoft partnership

Launching SAS Viya as a “Get It Now” offering in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace represents a continued focus on expanding the SAS/Microsoft strategic partnership. SAS first announced its partnership with Microsoft in 2020, and recently earned Microsoft’s Global Independent Software Vendor (ISV) 2022 Partner of the Year Award. This achievement recognizes partners for demonstrating innovation and implementation excellence.

The benefits of the partnership to organizations globally are clear. For the National Bank of Greece (NBG), the flexibility of the SAS platform combined with Microsoft Azure’s cloud elasticity has helped transform bank operations. “With the SAS Viya implementation in the cloud, we have significantly improved development of new analytics infrastructure by notably decreasing the costs and the complexity of processes, and by acquiring agility, speed and efficiency,” said Pantelis Maraveas, Assistant General Manager of Retail Segments, Bank Analytics and Liability Products at NBG.