{"id":15945,"date":"2017-03-28T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devwww.3cloudsolutions.com\/post\/webinar-recap-distributed-computing-r-server-2\/"},"modified":"2024-04-17T13:58:08","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:58:08","slug":"webinar-recap-distributed-computing-r-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3cloudsolutions.com\/resources\/webinar-recap-distributed-computing-r-server\/","title":{"rendered":"Webinar Recap: Distributed Computing & R Server"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, our monthly webinar series covered Distributed Computing and What’s New in R Server 9.0.1. If you missed the session, you can find the recording here<\/a>. We received a number of\u00a0questions during the presentation\u00a0and wanted to take the opportunity to provide some insightful answers for\u00a0the audience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"iStock-496851962.png\"<\/p>\n

If I am just getting started with R,\u00a0how should I go about choosing between open-source and Microsoft R?<\/h3>\n

It really depends on your needs, but luckily both open-source R<\/a> and\u00a0Microsoft R Open<\/a> are free to get started. Either solution\u00a0will allow you to practice working in the environment, and once you get comfortable in R and you starting running into the limitations with R on large datasets (the ones that won\u2019t fit in your computer\u2019s memory), you can look into purchasing\u00a0R Server, or spin up an R Server on Azure in HDInsight or on the Data Science Virtual Machine.<\/p>\n

When thinking of SAS vs. R: as a SAS user how difficult or easy would it be for me to learn and start using R?<\/h3>\n

Both SAS and R do very similar things. However, SAS code is written in procedures where R is more of a script. Since you\u2019re already familiar with the algorithms\/functions you use in SAS, learning the syntax of R really isn\u2019t that bad. Plus, the cost savings of R over SAS are tremendous! Check out the example below for a quick comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n

SAS<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n

\n

R<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Microsoft R<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Linear Regression<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

proc reg <\/strong>data=mydata;
\nmodel y=x1 x2 x3;<\/td>\n		lm(
\n<\/strong>y~x1+x2+x3,
\nmydata
\n)<\/strong><\/td>\n		rxLinMod(
\n<\/strong>formula: y ~ x1 + x2 + x3,
\nmyxdfdata
\n)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\nWhat use cases do you see being used with the R server technology?<\/h3>\n

I think the use cases depend on\u00a0when you want to take your R practice to the next level:<\/p>\n