What is the difference between LINK and COMMUNICATE?
Altair EmployeeAltair SLC Link
Altair SLC Link is a technology that essentially takes a local script or part of a local script from a local Workbench client and executes it on a remote platform. Any log files, HTML or Listing results, and any datasets created from executing the program remotely are returned to the client through the normal Output and Server Explorer graphical tabs.
File paths in the SAS program have to refer to file paths that are meaningful to the remote platform. A local server does not necessarily have to be running and you could setup your remote server to be the default server in the Server explorer so that all SAS scripts are executed remotely. The File Explorer subwindow can be used to view, change and execute SAS programs on the remote server through the local workbench client.
Altair SLC Link operates over an SSH connection and applies to hierarchical filestores such as Unix based platforms that automatically have sshd daemons running. No extra SAS language syntax statements are needed to execute code on a remote server.
Altair SLC Communicate
Altair SLC Communicate is a technology that depends on SAS language syntax statements such as SIGNON/SIGNOFF, RSUBMIT/ENDSUBMIT, PROC UPLOAD/DOWNLOAD in the SAS language program to execute code on both a local client and a remote server. It is a programmatic solution to remote execution. Any datasets created on the local client that need to be on the remote server have to be explicitly uploaded using PROC UPLOAD and any datasets created on the remote server that need to be used on the local client have to be explicitly downloaded using PROC DOWNLOAD. (However remote library access is available in SLC 5.0 onwards). Both local and remote SLC servers must be licensed.
See additional documentation in the /doc/ folder of the installation and also in our community forum on the Altair website.