SAS® grid technology powers Wharton School business research

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Wharton Research Data Services makes complex financial research as simple as Web surfing

CARY, NC – Wharton is applying SAS® Grid Computing technology to help speed complex research for its clients using Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS). By applying grid computing – along with several SAS data integration and analytics technologies – to more than 200 terabytes of worldwide financial, economic and marketing data, WRDS enables researchers, teachers and students to easily retrieve data and analyze today’s critical economic questions.

Accessibility, speed and computing power undergird WRDS’ success. As demand for business data and complex analysis surges, WRDS will apply SAS technology to let users create wide-ranging models – including portfolio construction and benchmarks, event studies, returns, market-to-book ratios, and momentum – at unprecedented speed.

“Adding SAS Grid Computing helps WRDS meet the growing demands of academic and financial researchers around the world,” said Robert Zarazowski, Senior Director of WRDS. “As financial research and analysis becomes more complicated, WRDS continually upgrades to ensure reliability and immediate results. We know our clients expect both, and SAS Grid Computing helps us meet their demands.”

WRDS has counted on SAS for analytics and reporting for 13 years. Dramatically rising subscriptions and queries drove the move to grid. With SAS Grid Computing, WRDS can have multiple servers simultaneously running SAS Analytics to tackle the most challenging requests. In addition, the flexible grid environment can grow incrementally and accommodate unexpected increases in analytic processing demand.

SAS Grid Computing, part of the SAS High-Performance Computing family, allocates computing-intensive SAS applications across available hardware resources for improved performance and greater stability. It creates a managed, shared environment to process large jobs and a growing number of users efficiently.

About WRDS and the Wharton School

Wharton Research Data Services provides flexible data delivery options, including a simple but powerful Web query method, and provides researchers with the ability to reduce their research time and execute strategy development on the powerful WRDS Cloud. Developed in 1993 to support faculty research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, WRDS has since evolved to become the leading business intelligence tool for a global research community. The comprehensive, Internet-based WRDS serves 30,000 users in 27 countries.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania— founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 88,000 graduates.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 55,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know® .