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Date

Thursday, June 28, 2023, at 1:00 pm ET

Recording

CCSQ Data & Analytics June Townhall - Video 

Agenda

1. Monthly Satisfaction Survey

2. SAS Viya Stability Issues

3. Data Camp Materials

4. Best Practice - Creating Help Desk

1. Tickets

2. Data Backup & Recovery

3. Ambari Decommission

4. Databricks (DBX) SQL Cluster

5. Q&A

SAS Stability Issues with Database Connections

• Issue Description: Several downtimes have occurred in the last two weeks related to database connection issues.

• Actions Taken:

  • The CCSQ Data & Analytics Team investigated and was able to bring the system back up so users could access/run their reports.
  • Engaged SAS Professional & Technical Services for assistance in resolving the issues.
  • We identified additional issues that were contributing to the access of the Centralized Data Repository (CDR). After further troubleshooting on 6/26, we implemented an upgrade on our Amazon Web Service (AWS) Relational Database Service (RDS) (Unplanned Maintenance Alert) that should improve the stability issues significantly.
• Future Actions:
  • We continue to modify our system alerts and have after-hours emergency support for SAS.
  • We continue to work to automate our systems to help with the stability issue.
  • We are working on being as proactive as possible in communicating CDR downtimes.
• Contact us via email (servicecentersos@cms.hhs.gov) or Slack (#help-service-center-sos) to alert us of any issues.

2023 Spring Data Camp Materials

• The 2023 Spring Data Camp recorded sessions are now available.
• Individual Sessions recordings and Q&As can be found on the Confluence site.
• 2023 Spring Data Camp

Best Practice - Creating Help Desk Tickets 

• Creating a Help Desk Ticket
  • CCSQ Support Central - Create a Ticket or SOS Slack channel.
• Communication
  • Slack (preferred) & Email (servicecentersos@cms.hhs.gov) 
• Code Issues
  • Provide entire code with issue.
  • Provide a screenshot of the code issue and error.
  • Complete error logs/error stack trace along with timestamp. 
• General Best Practices
  • Provide the complete Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket path.
  • Provide the specific workbench and the corresponding name you are having issues.

Upcoming New Rules for Data Backup and Recovery

Reference the recording for a walk through of this information at timestamp 15:20.

Ambari Decommission Update

• Why are we sunsetting?
  • Greater performance.
  • Cost efficient.
  • Less maintenance.
• What steps are needed for the decommission?
  • Connect everyone to DBX by Fall 2023 at the latest.
  • Migrate metadata from Hive to Glue during a maintenance weekend.
  • Turn off the lights.

Databricks Notebook SQL Cluster Release

• What does this mean?
  • Users will be able to connect SAS Viya and other Bring Your Own Analytics (BYOA) tools to a DBX cluster to utilize DBX features instead of Ambari.
• Who can connect?
  • SAS Viya users
  • BYOA tool users 
    • Three phases of releases
      • SAS Viya users
      • BYOA
      • CASLIBS
• How can they connect?
  • Through the use of a service principal and token
  • Not Personal Access Token (PAT) right now
• When will this be released?
  • July 2023

What is coming next? 

• Notebook SQL cluster is coming soon.
• Ambari Decommission.
• SQL Warehouse is coming in the next few months.
  • Need to be fully off Ambari. 
• Databricks educational opportunities.
• Feature Enhancements.
  • Personal Compute (by request only).

Support

• Email servicecentersos@cms.hhs.gov or use the help-service-center-sos slack channel for any issues.
• Open a request for Auto machine learning (ML) access, new features, or any training requests.

Reference the recording for a demo of the application

Q&A