According to Gartner, big data processing and cloud computing are among the most significant trends in 2013. Consequently, an important task of higher education is to train a competitive specialist knowledgeable in the relevant technologies.The course on computer data analysis developed by the authors for the training of specialists of different specialties combines the performance of data analysis tasks in the Excel and SPSS environments. Seeking to expand the use of statistical data analysis software, we turned to SAS's Academic Support Program. This application (SAS OnDemand for Academics) includes a free opportunity for students taking SAS courses and faculty teaching SAS-supported courses to download a SAS client to their computer and perform cloud-based data analysis using SAS servers.