My Astera experience
It is used by the software development department. We are using this for the ETL process to move and transform the data from one data …
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.
Recent Reviews
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)9.999%
- Connect to traditional data sources (31)9.090%
- Complex transformations (30)7.373%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Centerprise Enterprise
Contact rep
On Premise
Lifetime License per Seat
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.astera.com/pricing
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Feature Demonstration Data Integration Tool | Astera Centerprise
YouTube
Features
Return to navigation
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Astera Centerprise?
Astera Centerprise is a complete data integration solution that includes data integration, data transformation, data quality, and data profiling capabilities in a code-free environment, and promises to enable business users to handle data with minimal IT support. Centerprise enables users to exchange data with a wide range of supported applications, databases, and formats.
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
Centerprise Data Integrator is an integration platform that includes tools for data integration, data transformation, data quality, and data profiling.
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Integration Services, Adeptia Connect, and Talend Data Integration are common alternatives for Astera Centerprise.
Reviewers rate Simple transformations and Data model creation and Business rules and workflow highest, with a score of 9.9.
The most common users of Astera Centerprise are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- 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
Reviews
(1-24 of 24)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 14, 2024
My Astera experience
It is used by the software development department. We are using this for the ETL process to move and transform the data from one data source to another based on the business rules. We also use this to read the data from the source, transform the data and then feed our application.
- It is easy to use. Does not required too much technical background to learn.
- It can quickly transfer the data across different data sources as it supports the multi-thread processes.
- It supports many different data sources.
- It supports Azure connection
- Better support for SQLite, as it is only partially support it.
- Supporting the spatial functions. For example, connection SDE or geo databases.
- More user-friendly error message reporting.
- Move the ServerAdminConfig.Xml into cluster database as the file access always caused the issue
January 23, 2024
Astera Centerprise Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Astera Centerprise is being used by the IT Application Department in Aspen Medical Products. It is being used to integrate the Magento eCommerce platform to host the company's website with ERP Application (IQMS). I've been using the Astera Centerprise for the last 5 years to create Integration Dataflows, Workflows, Scheduled jobs to integrate the Magento and IQMS APIs. These jobs run round the clock from 4 am till midnight 7 days a week to keep the data flowing between the applications. The data includes customers orders, customer's account setups, address information updates, Credit limit updates, Customer's product pricing updates, etc...
- API integrations vis REST Web Service transformation
- Stored Procedure integration via SQL statement Lookup transformation
- Bulk imports and exports to and from tables
- Data dumps from SQL tables to excel, csv, text files etc...
- EDI Integrations like 810, 856, 940, 945 etc.. via Astera Centerprise Data Integrator plus EDI Connect
- I would say Server Monitor is not very user-friendly. Astera [Centerprise] can add sorting features on different columns to make it more intuitive
- The search box in server monitor doesn't display the the way I expect.
- Astera CDI can add Temp tables object to store staging/temporary data instead of using excel or data files.
March 29, 2023
Astera Centerprise for Every Enterprise
We are using Astera Centerprise to build and maintain our DWH solution. Then data is used for various kinds of reporting. This tool is very helpful in the quick development of ETL flows, adding new tables in the DWH, and SCD implementation. Makes operations smooth with scheduling/restart ability, and ease of error handling.
- Easy development of dataflows/workflows
- Scheduling and restart-ability
- SCD Implementation
- Better control/options for the filter in the server monitor panel.
- Improving re-running of the failed job by running only failed/pending jobs in sub-workflows, instead of triggering all the sub-workflows. This might not be as easy to implement as it looks but an area to look into.
- [Push-down mode]: PD mode is very useful and super fast when the source and destination both are in the same database. Performance can be enhanced more by not adding extra subquery ( or the brackets() ) for lookup/insert/update operations
- [Partitioning and parallelism] Diving data into some files and running parallel instances of each component to make run entire flow in a partitioned and parallel manner. This gives a super boost to workflow and huge sized data can be processed quickly.
January 16, 2023
Solid ETL solutions
We use Astera Centerprise for many various projects. Examples would include automated report generation, inventory alerts and scheduled email tasks. The main project we chose Astera Centerprise for was to sync what we hope will be a legacy database (SQL Anywhere by SAP) to a more web friendly database (MYSQL). Astera Centerprise currently did not have a database driver to connect to SQL Anywhere databases and we commissioned them to create that as part of our purchase agreement. We are still actively working through that process and troubleshooting any bugs that arise.
- Easily creates Excel files
- REST API integration
- Job Scheduling
- Knowledgeable Support Team
- No automatic updates. Must manually install each new version
- Job scheduling can be cumbersome
- Documentation is lacking
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Historically we have built a number of integrations and small tasks manually through various languages and processes - having to track what we used, who built it, and what server it's running on. Astera Centerprise has been a breakthrough in this regard in a few ways. The first is that it required almost no training to use. I have given someone a 15-minute demo and left feeling confident they could do simple processes with it moving forward. The drag and drop GUI is generally very intuitive and while nothing is perfect, I rarely am fighting against it. The second is there is a wealth of data connections and functions to use. When I talk to peers about this product, I just ask how they are moving data - any data. Do you have an excel sheet that someone updates that need to join its data to a database and from an API and then write these as a CSV file that you import with a PowerShell command? This is literally a task I built in a few hours in Astera Centerprise. If I need to interact with disparate data, Astera Centerprise is the tool I move to first today.
- ETL, ELT - moving and integrating data
- easy UX/Gui for interacting with the application
- Installation and setup
- Data Source Choices
- Complex Transformations
- Occasional Bugs
- Documentation could be better, more clear
- A premium priced product
November 08, 2021
Invest with Astera it will worth the price
Astera Centerprise is being used by different organizations here in our company. As a user or developer, it is really helps me to do a back-end program a lot easier without using of numerous codes, just a logic. It has a big impact on our business problems especially on data automation moving forward to the systems. By introducing this application as one of the solutions on the issues we experienced before regarding the labor and time, in manual entry, it gives wholly keyboarding process in order to create and finish a record, but with the help of Astera it can make the keyboarding in just a click and it can only takes a second or a minute. When it comes in data quality, due to manual it can cause human errors and inconsistent of data, instead of adapting this error, Astera can resolve this by using transformations which fitted to captures the needed data from the files with correct and accurate values. This system can be used efficiently in many organizations that involves gathering and processing of a large number of data.
- Codeless
- Data Automation
- Data Integration
- Easy to Manipulate
- Good User Interface
- Additional formulas in expression
- Set maximum number of emails per run
November 05, 2021
Astera Centerprise A Complete Data Integration Solution
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are currently re-writing our organization's ETL processes using Astera Centerprise. Most of those processes were written using VB.net. We are also creating some new ETL processes using Astera Centerprise. Most of my current work involves extracting claim data from databases for each State, format it as per State requirement and FTP the data. Once State receives the data, it sends us acknowledgement files. We then extract the data from the acknowledgement files and load it into our database. We are using Astera Centerprise for this process. There are other IT teams at our organization using Astera for many other company's ETL processes.
- Astera support team is very knowledgeable, helpful and very prompt to answer any question.
- Their product is very simple to use.
- Astera Centerprise Help documentation/training videos are very detailed.
- Astera Centerprise rolled out new version 8 recently. During our conversion from version 7 to version 8, we encountered couple of issues with new Astera version. Once notified, they fixed the issue and sent us the patch within days.
- I think Centerprise Server register feature in version 7 was much simpler than version 8.
October 20, 2021
Centerprise can transform your data management
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use it to transform data from legacy systems to newer systems. It addresses the problem of moving data across the enterprise. It also provides centralized management of the jobs created for the transportation of this data. We use the graphical interface to include the business in the design of solutions.
- Makes designing ETL jobs quick
- Able to include business users in the design
- Centralized job management
- Job management interface could use some work
- Some procedural functionality would help in certain situations
- It would be nice for the complied package to detect the environment in which it's running; Prod, Test, Development, and use those parameters accordingly.
May 13, 2020
Solid choice for mid-sized organizations
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use it primarily for publishing to a data warehouse. Another production application creates and exchanges XML files with a federal regulatory agency, and as a 1-off, we are using Centerprise to validate an Oracle-to-SQLServer migration.
- Of the six mid-tier ETL/DI tools I studied, Centerprise is the most intuitive to use.
- Customer support is email-centric, but nonetheless solid. Astera happily does conference calls when the need arises.
- Wide range of features.
- Expression transformation uses SQL-ish (as opposed to Java-ish or MS-ish) commands. Simple to use, and select/paste helps.
- Love the PowerCenter-style expression transformation.
- Documentation explanations are in video and text format. While most explanations are relatively clear (or even very clear), in my opinion, the documentation is a bit haphazardly-organized. It takes me longer than I'd like to find something, although I usually do.
- Look-ups transformation certainly works, but it could be more robust. (There are ways around that.)
May 01, 2020
Astera Centerprise simplified our on-boarding process and was a great fit for our needs.
Astera Centerprise is being used by two teams that are responsible for onboarding data for new or existing customers. Those teams work in conjunction to ensure that proper workflows are set up to review and qualify the data prior to ingestion to our downstream systems. It has helped to centralize our data loading and transformation efforts, and provide visibility into data issues or patterns that we didn't have insight into before. Quality of data is key for our process, and we are TB scale, so performance and scalability were a factor as well.
- Handles large volumes of data well!
- Centralizes and simplifies data management loading!
- Provides insight into data anomalies and patterns that weren't previously visible!
- Like any tool, it has a learning curve and is somewhat proprietary in how they approach things.
- It can be clunky to train others who aren't familiar with such tools or concepts, not so intuitive that it can be picked up by any engineer.
April 30, 2020
Astera Review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It helps us in the massive storage of data and the resolution of intelligence problems of our business. It simplifies complex integrations: Apache Spark, Databricks, Qubole, AWS, Snowflake, Google Cloud Platform and NoSQL ..., and offers us integrated data quality to transform big data into reliable information. It provides us with clean and filtered data structures, which are exploited by the different end-user tools, increasing the quality and value of data, and allowing the optimization of our decisions.
- Ease of managing large volumes of data.
- Good integration with Mainframe platforms.
- The Data Stream Programming Concept is straightforward.
- Good integration with Data Provenance and auditing.
- Possibility of handling binary data.
- Simple user interface.
- Lack of statistics per processed record.
- High resource consumption.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We currently use the Astera Centprise and ReportMiner products to create automated scheduled tasks that: retrieve, extract, and process financial information for reports and data integration with other enterprise-level systems. We specifically use the ReportMiner product to extract data from a PDF format for easier integration with other systems. The Centprise product allows our business analyst to easily manage and create a custom workflow and models to automate the complex data integration between systems regardless of file formats.
- Centerprise simplifies data modeling and workflow creation. The product has a very user-friendly UI, business users with no technical background need very little training.
- Extracting data from a PDF and other proprietary formats.
- The Centerprise product is very scalable and can handle robust volumes.
- I would like to have integrated source control and better change management tools. Often workflows and data models are updated or modified and the history or original files are not tracked or easy to follow in the history.
- Licensing a new instance can be difficult.
April 29, 2020
Worth it!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It is used by our data reporting and solutions team to create solutions and complete corrections to EDI issues that arise when submitting healthcare EDI files to the Wisconsin State Medicaid program. We also use this tool to load data to our SQL data warehouse so that all company SQL users have access to the data received from the state and other outside vendors.
- 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.
April 29, 2020
Astera is a perfect tool for database management.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Astera allows us to monitor the database software at all times. It does not help to manage through data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) tools. We monitor the disk usage of the database server. This allows us to track Big Data data at the moment and respond to our users and anticipate their needs.
- 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.
April 29, 2020
Astera rocks!
We are using it in Data Migration project to move data from legacy applications to state of the art applications. It is being used by projects under the Data Migration programs. Being used to migrate HR data, CRM data, ERP data, etc.
Data Sources: Oracle DB, SQL Server DB, XML, CSV.
Targets: Oracle DB, XML
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.).
April 17, 2020
One of the easiest ETL tools out there
Astera Centerprise currently is used in two of our sub companies. Centerprise plays the major role in integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX, Salesforce and other in-house built applications.
- 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).
August 21, 2015
Centerprise makes data integration easy
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Centerprise Data Integrator to process data into and out of our proprietary and off the shelf software applications. We process data into mainly SQL Server back-ends. Our numerous EDI outputs are to private and government agencies. We have even used Centerprise to automate and schedule reports using custom DLL functions. We even use custom functions in Centerprise to encrypt and decrypt some of the data. Our latest implementation exports an excel file and automatically PGP encrypts it from a SQL server back-end.
- 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.
August 21, 2015
First impressions of Centerprise
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We convert data from various sources to our ERP system. I use Centerprise for two jobs. 1) take the data from reports provided and transform them to delimited files that can be imported into our ERP system. 2) Transform the data into an Excel spreadsheet into a format that may be compared to data already imported into our ERP system, to verify that the data did get into the database correctly.
- 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.
August 17, 2015
Fast and Simple. All-in-one package
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We purchased Centerprise to be our ETL tool for our new "CloudNet" Crop Insurance Policy system. It was our tool to do our nightly loads to our Data Warehouse for all of our reporting needs. It was also our tool for sending and receiving all our daily RMA files to the government.
- 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.
August 13, 2015
Like peeling an onion, there is so much more to it!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our department handles data conversion for a proprietary database. We process and manipulate data coming from competitors' systems in a variety of formats, and convert it into our systems. Centerprise readily replaces the need to use multiple other programs with their Data Integrator. Instead of processing in one program, then the next, and so on, we now have a single-point tool that does everything the others do, and much more.
- 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.
August 10, 2015
Centerprise Data Integrator - XML the easy way
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Centerprise Data Integrator is used to process XML data. The software is currently used by myself only. Data Integrator replaced SSIS as our XML mapping tool. Due to a very aggressive implementation timeline, SSIS was not feasible. Data Integrator allowed me to map complex XML data very quickly and without much ramp-up time.
- 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.
August 07, 2015
WOW Why did we wait soooo long?
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We mainly use Centerprise for two areas. Our team takes other systems' data and transforms that into our format for our developed software. We use Centerprise to pull the necessary information out of the other systems' reports to validate the completion of a conversion. We also use it to extract data from the other systems' reports to do the actual data transformation into our format when the other system's provider will not supply data for the conversion.
- 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.
August 04, 2015
Astera Centerprise rules!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Centerprise is primarily used to move data from our operational database into our newly created data warehouse. We also intend to use it to exchange data files between different applications. We are still in development, but we pull data from sources that span our whole organization into an enterprise data warehouse that will be accessed by our internal and external users through MicroStrategy, our reporting tool.
- 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.
August 03, 2015
Best in the market for data integration
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Centerprise Data Integrator is used across the organization. It saves a lot of time with ease of use.
- 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