Overview
What is Astera Centerprise?
Centerprise Data Integrator is an integration platform that includes tools for data integration, data transformation, data quality, and data profiling.
Astera Centerprise Review
TrustRadius Insights
Astera Centerprise for Every Enterprise
Excellent Tool
A back office gem whose power is in the simplicity
Great Automated Tool for ETL
Great to exchange data between Salesforce and other systems
Astera Works for Us
Fast and easy-to-manage ETL software
Solid ETL solutions
Astera Centerprise a solid centerpiece of your data stack
Centerprise is great for automating workflows.
Honest review of Centerprise after one year of use
Invest with Astera it will worth the price
Centerprise-10/10
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Business rules and workflow (28)9.999%
- Simple transformations (32)9.898%
- Connect to traditional data sources (31)9.090%
- Complex transformations (30)7.373%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Centerprise Enterprise
Contact rep
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Feature Demonstration Data Integration Tool | Astera Centerprise
Features
Data Source Connection
Ability to connect to multiple data sources
- 9Connect to traditional data sources(31) Ratings
Ability to connect to traditional data sources like relational databases, flat files, XML files and packaged applications
- 7.3Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL(1) Ratings
Ability to connect to non-traditional data sources like Hadoop and other big data technologies, and NoSQL databases
Data Transformations
Data transformations include calculations, search and replace, data normalization and data parsing
- 9.8Simple transformations(32) Ratings
Simple data transformations are calculations, data type conversions, aggregations and search and replace operations
- 7.3Complex transformations(30) Ratings
Complex data transformations are data normalization, advanced data parsing, etc.
Data Modeling
A data model is a diagram or flowchart that illustrates the relationships between data
- 9.8Data model creation(19) Ratings
Ability to create and maintain data models using a graphical tool to define relationships between data
- 9.9Business rules and workflow(28) Ratings
Ability to define and manage business rules and workflows
- 6.4Collaboration(1) Ratings
Collaboration is enabled by a shared repository of project information and metadata
- 7.9Testing and debugging(27) Ratings
Tool to debug and tune for optimal performance
Data Governance
Data governance is the practise of implementing policies defining effective use of an organization's data assets
- 8.2Integration with data quality tools(1) Ratings
Integration with tools for cleansing, parsing and normalizing data according to business rules
- 8.2Integration with MDM tools(1) Ratings
Integration with master data management tools to ensure data consistency across the organization
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Astera Centerprise?
Astera Centerprise Features
Data Source Connection Features
- Supported: Connect to traditional data sources
Data Transformations Features
- Supported: Simple transformations
- Supported: Complex transformations
Data Modeling Features
- Supported: Data model creation
- Supported: Business rules and workflow
- Supported: Testing and debugging
Additional Features
- Supported: Integrated development environment
- Supported: Data quality and profiling
- Supported: Job flow, scheduling, and execution
- Supported: Extensibility and openness
- Supported: Performance and scalability
- Supported: Ease of use for business users
Astera Centerprise Screenshots
Astera Centerprise Integrations
- Microsoft SQL Server
- SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), legacy
- ReadyAPI
- SAP CRM discontinued
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- MySQL
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Salesforce
- Oracle
- Netezza
- Teradata
- XML
- Excel
- X12
- PRN
- IBM DB2
- REST
- ODBC
- Ole DB
- Delimited
- flat
- fixed length files
- COBOL
- HIPAA
- JSON
Astera Centerprise Competitors
Astera Centerprise Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows |
Mobile Application | No |
Supported Countries | USA |
Supported Languages | English |
Frequently Asked Questions
Astera Centerprise Customer Size Distribution
Consumers | 0% |
---|---|
Small Businesses (1-50 employees) | 11% |
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees) | 47% |
Enterprises (more than 500 employees) | 42% |
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(54)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
Astera Centerprise is a versatile and affordable data integration tool that has proven to be highly valuable in various use cases. Users have found that the software is commonly used to generate files from a data warehouse in proprietary formats and send them to vendors. It is also utilized for automated report generation, inventory alerts, and scheduled email tasks. Additionally, Astera Centerprise is often employed for ETL processes, allowing for seamless movement and transformation of data between different sources based on specific business rules.
One of the key use cases of Astera Centerprise is syncing a legacy database to a more web-friendly database, which requires the creation of a custom database driver. Users have successfully leveraged the software for this purpose. Another significant use case is integrating Salesforce with various ERP systems, providing an intuitive user interface for exchanging data between these platforms. Furthermore, Astera Centerprise has been instrumental in providing visibility into issues with moving data from legacy systems to the application's database, reducing both time and technical skills required.
The software simplifies the process of building integrations and small tasks through its drag-and-drop GUI and wide range of data connections and functions. For instance, it is widely used for importing data into Microsoft Dynamics AX, Salesforce, and other in-house built applications, making it easier to map and integrate the data. Moreover, Astera Centerprise streamlines data integration processes by enabling analysts to connect to various data sources and perform complex transformations seamlessly.
The software finds application in diverse domains such as finance, healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing. For example, it serves as a key component for consolidating financial data from different sources into a single view for corporate finance groups. It also plays a critical role in integrating electronic health record systems with other systems in the healthcare sector. Across organizations, Astera Centerprise is widely used for importing and exporting data from application databases efficiently, saving significant time. Additionally, the software is valued for its ability to manipulate and map data based on client requirements, enabling users to synchronize data between ecommerce solutions and ERP systems effectively.
Intuitive Interface: Multiple users have praised the intuitive interface of Centerprise, stating that it is easy to understand and navigate. They have mentioned that after becoming familiar with the interface, they were able to quickly start using the tool.
Self-Documenting Graphical Approach: Many reviewers appreciate Centerprise's self-documenting graphical approach for building data flows. This feature allows new team members to easily understand existing work, saving time and promoting collaboration.
Data Preview Capability: The ability to preview data on each object within Centerprise has been highly valued by users. Being able to immediately see transformation results at any point in a data flow has not only saved them time but also facilitated data reconciliation processes.
Confusing User Interface: Several users have found the user interface of the software to be confusing and difficult to follow, making tasks more challenging. They have expressed frustration with navigating through the different features and options, resulting in a steep learning curve.
Issues with Software Updates: Users have encountered various issues during software updates, including bugs and changes to existing functionality. Some reviewers mentioned that these updates were not seamless and caused disruptions in their workflows. They had to spend time troubleshooting and adapting to the changes, which was inconvenient for them.
Performance Issues with Large Datasets: Some users have experienced performance issues when working with large datasets. They reported slowdowns and delays while processing extensive amounts of data. However, they were able to find workarounds by optimizing their workflows or breaking down the datasets into smaller chunks for better performance.
Attribute Ratings
- 9.2Likelihood to Renew7 ratings
- 8.7Availability2 ratings
- 8.5Performance2 ratings
- 8.6Usability9 ratings
- 8.6Support Rating21 ratings
- 8.6Implementation Rating4 ratings
- 9.1Configurability1 rating
- 7.7Product Scalability2 ratings
- 9Ease of integration2 ratings
- 9Vendor pre-sale2 ratings
- 9Vendor post-sale2 ratings
- 9Professional Services1 rating
- 8Contract Terms and Pricing Model1 rating
Reviews
(26-45 of 45)Worth it!
- Astera's customer service and help team are quick to respond and have always found solutions to my questions or problems. They also follow up after completing a support request to make sure everything was working correctly. If it's not something the current version allows, as far as functionality, they develop a solution for the next version because they assume if one company has that need that others will as well.
- I've never lost touch with our sales representative. She checks in at least twice a year, if not more, to make sure that we are happy with their product and to see if we need anything. I've rarely needed anything, but when I did she made sure to have the correct person contact me regarding what I asked for and she followed up to make sure the request was resolved.
- EDI is a very complex language and making any changes can cause errors in other areas that you aren't aware of. Astera Centerprise creates an environment that is much easier to understand than looking at a raw data file. The functionality allows us to make changes to each transaction within a file in under a minute with no errors created. Making these changes before we had Astera Centerprise took a week for one file. We can now get to more files to create clean data for the state and have reached 97% acceptance.
- Centerprise's functionality can be applied at any level. It can be a broad change to an entire segment, or it can be a single digit that is changed. You can program the system to look for specific items within a file and change only the records that need to be changed. It can sequence items, it can remove items and it can add items when specifically programmed to. And if you run into a wall creating the program, Astera's help desk will help you get past it. And the program language used is easy to understand as well. If you understand functions in Microsoft Excel or SQL statements, you will be able to use this product.
- When purchasing Astera Centerprise you are given options on how you would like to be trained and each option comes with a different price tag. We chose to be trained using online meetings over several days. The training went too fast and it was not always easy to understand until I started using the product.
- I am a person that wants to learn how and why something works so that I can use the knowledge in the future. When contacting the support team they take the problem, create a solution for you and send it back. The solutions always work, but when I get the solution I have to review every field and function to understand how it works so that I can re-create it for another solution I need. I would much rather have the support team explain what I had done incorrectly and what they changed or I would like to find a solution with them instead of having it handed to me.
- Astera uses license keys to allow their customers rights to only the functionality that was purchased. Each user and server has its own key and each key is only good for one year. There have been 2 different times that we received keys that had less functionality that we purchased. It wasn't until it created problems that we noticed and had to request new keys. This year our sales representative made sure she was available when we updated our keys so that if there was a problem she could fix it right away; however, there were not issues this year. I believe this is something they pay closer attention to now.
Astera is a perfect tool for database management.
- It has a wide range of platforms, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and more.
- Efficient workflow.
- Granular coverage for each database platform.
- Advanced SQL optimization.
- Test of performance.
- Real-time performance diagnostics.
- Detection and protection of our confidential data.
- Backing up the database takes a long time.
- Testing backups to make sure the database can be recovered is difficult.
- Recovering lost data in the event of an incident is time consuming.
Astera Centerprise
- EDI integration.
- API integration.
- ETL batch updates.
- No issues encountered so far.
Astera rocks!
Data Sources: Oracle DB, SQL Server DB, XML, CSV.
Targets: Oracle DB, XML
- Very simple installation and configuration.
- Easy to learn.
- User Interface (UI) is very intuitive.
- Simple licensing.
- Expert product support services.
- Performance with large dataset (50 million+ rows) can cause some issues. But there are ways to work around that.
- Generating XML using CSV source - adding additional header elements in the XML was not available in the product. Needed to do some post processing. Should be included in the product feature.
- Data Accuracy - 38 decimal places (i.e NUMBER data type in Oracle type) not supported by Astera in the version we used. Newer version may have addressed this issue
- Needs more pre-built connectors for well-known cloud apps (Dynamics, SFDC etc.).
However, Astera may not best suited for real-time, API-based integration. One can make it work (it has REST/SOAP client), but it may not be as good as Mulesoft, etc.
One of the easiest ETL tools out there
- It offers simplicity in building simple to medium integrations really fast.
- The integration flows are mostly easy to read and hence can be shown to and understood by many non-technical people.
- Any kind of feasible built-in security framework was something that was badly missing up till version 8. And even in version 8 it is still doing just the first baby steps. More effort should be invested from Astera to build a secure framework ideally with Active Directory integration.
- Better debugging options are needed. Sometimes the flows are failing and it is hard to trace the problem. Ideally we could have a debugger that step by step highlights the elements in the flow and thus shows where the data is currently being transformed in that step (just like when you debug source code).
On the topic of less appropriate usage scenarios - we have seen Astera struggling with vast amounts of data. Also if you have a huge system architecture, there is a good chance that some of the systems will not have any kind of native connectors. When compared to competition, Centerprise is definitely not that rich in terms of native connector collection for different systems. Should you choose Astera Centerprise, for some target systems you might need to opt for workarounds with webservice calls or file exchange to set up your interfaces.
Great data tool!
- Slick drag and drop UI is easy to learn and get started with
- Customer service is friendly and responsed quickly
- Large array of built in functions makes data manipulation easy
- Sometimes when previewing the data output or even running complex dataflows it can take a long time.
- Occasionally crashes after long use
- Could use some more functions like row number
Centerprise Data Integrator is an excellent toolset for multiple uses in a healthcare agency
- The user friendly interface to develop integration packages means that you don't need to be highly trained in SQL code.
- There is a huge variety of out-of-box functions, translations, and connectors. This means you can get up and running with using these different components right away.
- Centerprise Data Integrator can mine data from unstructured and semi-structured data sources like pdf files and csv's. It means that virtually anything you have can be moved into a SQL database or fed into other systems.
- Centerprise Support has been excellent and responsive to our needs.
- We had some issues in getting the software running with their licensing model on our Citrix Desktop. They were very helpful in working with us on this issue.
- With any product that creates SQL code in the background, I am skeptical of how optimized that will be for our specific environment. We have not yet had problems related to this, but customers may want to monitor closely.
- They do not yet seem to have a large customer base and robust user community.
Centerprise makes data integration easy
- Allows for integration of custom functions.
- Allows us to easily migrate data to and from any data source. Our department has become the go-to for automated data extracts.
- We use emails from jobs we run in Centerprise to ensure all jobs run successfully.
- I have not upgraded to the latest version, but in the last version, could use better descriptions in error messages.
- I have not upgraded to the latest version, but in the last version, it would be nice to have reports we could run or have emailed daily/weekly with success/failure of all jobs scheduled.
First impressions of Centerprise
- Parses fields from reports. Vertical reports can be transformed into one single row in Excel.
- Process PDF reports. Very helpful. So far, the best tool for this task that I have used.
- Easy to use. No need have a strong developer background to use.
- PDF reports are tricky at times. The columns line up when printed on paper. But Centerprise does not always see the columns this way.
Centerprise at its best!
- Easy to learn. We were able to train new employees and get them to speed within a week.
- Easy for business users.
- Would like to see template based development. For example I should be able to select a new TARGET table to be a TYPEII table, the tool should have a wizard to create the right map.
Fast and Simple. All-in-one package
- Once you get the feel around the interface, Centerprise is a real easy and fast tool to get up and running. You can have a Dataflow up and running in mere minutes compared to some other tools on the market. The interface is simple and pretty much everything is all in once place and easy to understand.
- The Preview data on each object is a lifesaver. To be able to set up a Dataflow and preview it's data immediately without having to run or set up a workflow is a very time-saving benefit.
- You can run Dataflows. They do not need to be incorporated into a Workflow in order to run.
- You have the ability to pass in and out parameters to Dataflows. Very handy if you need specific information about a Dataflow (or data in that flow) in order to continue on processing the next step.
- The scheduler is extremely nice and easy.
- Centerprise is an all in one package. Everything is together. You do not need a separate scheduler or bits and pieces of other products in order to get full use of Centerprise. You can Read, write and parse files. You can send emails and/or FTP to government (any) sites. You can schedule your jobs or have your System (we had .NET) call and trigger a job for you.
- Our main concern is backward compatibility with QA testing. We had a few releases of new code, changes or fixed that broke existing code which took us over 90 hours to run thru and refresh all our flows. We like the enhancements, but we don't have time to back thru everything, everytime there is a release to retest and refresh all the Flows. It's not feasible for us.
- Help documentation. There needs to be a lot more with a lot of examples (so we aren't calling and bugging support all the time). Although, they were extremely helpful, but I'm sure they have other things to do than teach us how to use the product.
- Pretty much any enhancement we needed at the time (or asked for) was given to us in a pretty timely manner. The Cobol objects were fixed/enhanced. The out variables were added. The only thing we didn't get to use that we asked for was the REST service calls. We had a lot more we wanted to do with the product.
Test drive the product in your environment before buying
- The mapping interface is easy to use.
- It works well with our code repository.
- It does not work well in an environment where you run a lot of small jobs. The queue processor leaves much to be desired.
- Jobs fail for no apparent reason and do not automatically restart. We have to come in every morning and manually restart jobs that have failed overnight.
Like peeling an onion, there is so much more to it!
- We often receive PDF-based reports from a competitor's financial and payroll management system. A normal cut and paste operation makes a mess of the data, whereas the Centerprise Data Integrator parses and aggregates the data.
- In some cases, we have to generate a value for a proprietary field in our database based on multiple fields of competitive data. Rather than support multiple versions of our own data importer, we can build the value on the fly, saving time and effort.
- The Data Integrator is intelligent in its ability to parse reports, map and modify fields, and export data. We are just now going into more depth from starting at the tip of the Centerprise iceberg. The more we see, the more impressed we are.
- I haven't seen any areas for improvement, but as I become more proficient with its usage, there's an outside chance I could provide suggestions.
My experience with Centerprise
- Easy to learn
- I liked it because I was converting older historical files with packed fields (COBOL) and it did a good job of converting without a lot of effort.
- You could reuse structures you build instead of having to redo it.
- I think in the beginning there were some issues with more complex data flows but they usually fixed them. I think they have made a lot of improvements since we first started using the software.
Centerprise Data Integrator - XML the easy way
- Maps XML data exceptionally well
- Integrates flawlessly with SQL 2012
- Extremely robust set of transformations and functions which allows a huge amount of flexibility with ETL
- The help functionality. Needs better search and more examples.
Astera Centerprise Data Integrator
- Centerprise Data Integrator makes it very easy for non-technical people to create and maintain data mappings from one data source type to another. This is beneficial to allow developers and engineers to focus on other parts of the business needs and not be bogged down with constant work flow changes desired by the customers.
- Centerprise Data Integrator is very good at moving and translating large blocks of data efficiently.
- Our biggest problem is with updates. We feel we have to thoroughly test each and every update with complete regression testing before we can apply that update to our production environment. This is due to previous updates often containing bugs or changing existing functionality.
- Centerprise Data Integrator could do a much better job at moving a lot of small sets of data instead of a few large sets.
- Web services connection could be much better. It is difficult to get some web services to work properly.
- Could really benefit from allowing 32-bit integers instead of only 64-bit integers.
WOW Why did we wait soooo long?
- Because the standard reports from one system to another are not always compatible - Centerprise allows us to create a reusable template to standardize the information that we use to validate conversions. Standardizing the reporting data from two systems is an awesome strength that can be developed out of Centerprise.
- We have had several instances that the supplier of software to a customer will not provide data out of their system for conversion. Sometimes it is a timing issue (you will need to wait 6 months for this) and other times it is a cost issue. We have been able to convert accounting and payroll information into our system just based on reports out of the legacy system. Because we can save the template we can now convert anyone on that legacy system without the involvement of the legacy system's software provider.
- We have several support calls that have been labeled as to be done in the future. One is the reading of the File Definition in AcuCobol with the sign trailing in a numeric field. The handling of this would help us in several areas but we have been able to develop a work around at this point.
- Some of the child/overlap configuration for the "RMD" seems awkward.
Astera Centerprise rules!
- It's incredibly easy to use. The YouTube videos Astera provides are enough to get you started. People with no previous ETL experience can start building simple mappings very quickly.
- It's incredibly easy to install and maintain. After I first installed Centerprise, I was able to start working in just a few minutes, and the maintenance releases are pretty straightforward.
- I am particularly impressed with how much Centerprise simplifies transformations that require more work in other ETL tools. The perfect example is the SCD transformation, which handles all the logic in an Slowly Changing Dimension. Even with a market leader like Informatica, the SCD logic has to be manually built. With Centerprise this can be built in just a few minutes, and it impacts every mapping.
- Performance is definitely an area to work on. My own benchmarking shows a notable difference when introducing simple transformations into a jobflow.
- The tool lacks debugging capabilities
- I would like to see more jobflow stats than the ones provided
- It is Windows-based. Many companies (including ours) are UNIX shops, and try to avoid Windows servers as much as possible, so it would be nice to have a non-Windows version.
Our data volumes are relatively small (~200Gb). I wonder how it would perform with terabytes of data. I know it has partitioning capabilities but I haven't had the chance to use them, so I wonder if performance will be reasonable.
Make Centerprise your data toolkit's center prize!
- The links to many different data sources made it real easy to gain access to the key data elements and integrate the data across many different systems.
- The graphical approach is self documenting and permits the rapid assimilation of existing work by new team members.
- It makes it VERY easy to build source/destination data reconciliations.
- The ability to incrementally see the data transformation results at any point in a data flow is invaluable.
- The XML processors make it real easy to process and integrate XML data. We've even used Centerprise on its own data logs to pull out and report on the XML job log data for custom reporting.
- Centerprise is an invaluable tool for addressing data integration particularly dealing with 'Shadow IT' Excel spreadsheets.
- The dataflow architecture will take some getting used to as you have to understand the various data flow objects and THINK about how a data flow will work to accomplish what you want.
- The scheduler and job monitor are areas where the product can be improved. We would like to see an independent job monitor as a separate read only component so that a client use license is not not needed to see the working jobs.
- The job scheduler interface is not that intuitive and adding jobs, particularly in 100's, is VERY time consuming using the interface.
- The mapping between UTC and local times need work and the scheduler needs to handle switching back and forth between day light savings.
Best in the market for data integration
- Very easy to use when compared to SSIS
- Less technical people can learn the product easily
- Huge time saver
- I have none, I wish I could use all the features that it offers