It's so fulfulling when expertise from hobbies pays off in unsuspecting ways. I was looking for a version of SAS I could install and use, fully expecting to (gasp!) resort to a "torrented" version. How excited I was when I discovered that SAS offers a free University Edition of its software...which uses Oracle VirtualBox! Only my favorite virtualization software. AND to top it off it comes with a kernel for Jupyter notebooks. My goodness. Still Christmas for me apparently.

Installation was cake. Download the appliance, import it into VirtualBox, and open the web application in a browser on your host machine. Boom, you have SAS. Running virtually.

I have a deeper understanding now of the sorts of applications that are used in a virtual production environment. My use has always been rather limited to running multiple operating systems, while exploring the tip of the iceberg when it comes to server applications that this implies. Here is a full-fledged virtual product that has real impact for me. Of course I want to know all about how the appliance actually allows SAS to be run as a web application. Too frickin cool.

Thanks SAS!