Item: Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise)
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Astera Centerprise

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Pros and Cons

Pros

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.

Cons

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).

Return on Investment

I as a software engineer cannot speak of ROI on business level.
Certainly Astera Centerprise is a key player in our system infrastructure, business heavily depends on data being exchanged between systems.

Alternatives Considered

TIBCO Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe) and Azure Logic Apps

Astera wins on simplicity of building and maintaining the data flows. I am afraid that the two above-mentioned tools (and especially LogicApps) actually have more power under the hood. However, as mentioned before - Astera is way simpler to understand and maintain. Astera can be easily mastered by anyone.

Support Rating

Support has been great so far. In most of the cases the response was there in just a few hours. Also all the reported problems have been solved up till now. A definite 9+ for support service!

Key Insights

Do you think Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise) delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise)'s feature set?

Did Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise) again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (Dynamics AX), Salesforce Service Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM)

Likelihood to Recommend

Astera Centerprise works well with all kinds of file interactions, with several native connectors, with web services... It has a great benefit of being simple to read and hence for building simple flows and for troubleshooting simple to medium flows, you don't even need someone with deep Centerprise knowledge - many advanced business analysts and consultants should be able to read and act on simple Astera flows, so you don't always need a developer for such tasks.

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.

Astera Data Pipeline Builder (Centerprise) Feature Ratings

Comments

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One of the easiest ETL tools out there