My Astera experience
Updated February 14, 2024

My Astera experience

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Astera Centerprise

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
If you are working with the large data and try to do validation/transformation, this is good to have. Also, if you do not have a programming or database background, I think you will find this is very easy to use. I think you can use this to do any data validation and massage with it.

Overall Satisfaction Continued

  • The ability to exchange and valid the data between different data sources
  • It is quickly adapted by many of my co-workers and easy to learn. That saved a lot of training time.
  • As I am dealing with a big data set, it helps us to move and verify the data quickly.
  • It took me some time to get used to the error message, as it is a bit too technical. This has also caused some issues as other users may need more support on it.
  • The cdc file caused the issue a lot. We have to remove that from our design.
  • Astera provides a fast response for support.
We first tried Informatica and think it is suitable for our company. However, the per license price is way too expensive, as we need to support multiple users at the same time. When compared to Astera, we found Astera can do most of the stuff that Informatica does. That's why we picked Astera.

Do you think Astera Centerprise delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Astera Centerprise's feature set?

Yes

Did Astera Centerprise live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Astera Centerprise go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Astera Centerprise again?

Yes

Astera Centerprise Feature Ratings

Connect to traditional data sources
10
Simple transformations
10
Complex transformations
10
Data model creation
Not Rated
Business rules and workflow
10
Testing and debugging
8

Using Astera Centerprise

10 - They are doing the software development and ETL processing
4 - They have the strong SQL and Oracle knowledge. They know our data model inside out.
  • Transfer data from one data source to another
  • Validate the data and provide the report to the user
  • Trying to use it to connect to Azure
  • We used Astera as the backend of some of our webservices
  • We are trying to use Astera to move data between Azure and local databases
I like the ability for fast transfer the data between data source. Also, I like the way we can put the business rules in for validation. Finally I love the support from Astera.

Evaluating Astera Centerprise and Competitors

Yes - We replaced one of our internal made software because of that software was made as single thread application. Astera made our application runs much faster. We also used Astera to replace one of our old application.
  • Cloud Solutions
  • Scalability
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Ease of Use
I think the product feature is the most important factor for our decision. We love how Astera is easy to use and fast to transfer data.
If I can do it again, other than how easy to use and how fast to transfer the data. I think I will also evaluation how easy to debug the issues when they occur.

Astera Centerprise Implementation

Yes, I was part of the team for implement Astera into our software.
Yes - There are two major implementation. 1. We are using that as the backend for the webservice. There was validation and data loading phases for it. 2. Complete ETL process. We did the extract and transform together as one phase and load for the second.
Change management was minimal
  • When there is issue occur, it is very hard to debug as the error message did not give me enough information
  • When using the webservice component, it always gives me the generic error message.

Astera Centerprise Training

This is very easy to learn. But I will suggest Astera to provide some training for others as I need to provide the training to my co-workers for Astera right now.

Configuring Astera Centerprise

I think for the dataflow and workflow the configurability is wonderful.
Don't try to use the multi-thread loading for the foreign keys enabled tables
Yes - we have customized the interface extensively - We need to allow our clients to customize all there configuration based on our data model. Our development team created the application for it. They are only calling Astera api to do the job.
No - the product does not support adding custom code

Astera Centerprise Support

I like their support a lot. They are quick. Normally, I get a response back within one or two hours, which other companies cannot do. Also, I can see they are trying hard to help us to resolve the issues. They even spend the time to create the example projects for us to help us understand and fix the issue.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
I believe our company purchase that. I think we need that because we always need to have the fastest response to resolve our client issues.
Yes - Yes, they were resolved quick and I am satisfying for them.
There was our client security issue. I submitted the support ticket and request the same day meeting with our client. I got the response within an hour and have the meeting with our client to resolve the issue. This was quick turnaround and very helpful.

Using Astera Centerprise

I think Astera is great in general except the issue for cdc files and it is a bit hard to debug when error occur.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Data transfer
  • Data validation
  • I think xml data transfer is a bit difficult

Astera Centerprise Reliability

I think Astera can do multiple things. However, we are not sure what it can do. We only know the basic features. If they can give us some kind of training, then we maybe able to benefit for it. We are planning to use their Azure connection in the future. If they can provide the training for it, it will be wonderful.
In most cases Astera is stable. However, our client experiences the error from time to time. Mostly they are related to cdc file and ServerAdminConfig.xml file.
I think the performance for Astera is great when compare with other similar software.

Integrating Astera Centerprise

It seems our development team can use the api in our application easily.
  • SQL server
  • Oracle
  • Excel
  • Xml
  • Webservice
SQL, Oracle and Excel are very easy to use and we are using them in most of our products. We are using the webservice call feature for one of our application. It is easy to use as well. However, I found it is difficult to debug when there is any issue. XML is the most difficult one to use. We start to use that at the beginning and need to swap that out to use sql command instead.
  • We are planning to use the Azure connector
Yes, we found couple of vendors provide this.
  • File import/export
  • Single Signon
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
  • ETL tools
no
Learn what Astera can do first as I am still trying to explore what I can do with it.

Relationship with Astera Software

I think the sales person is very friendly and helpful.
She is wonderful. Whenever we have question, she is willing to help.
I am not sure about this

Upgrading Astera Centerprise

Yes - When we upgrade from Astera 7 to Astera 8, it took a long time as there are a lot of changes in both dataflow and workflow. We are planning to upgrade to Astera 10 in few months, I hope it is easier this time.
  • Bugs fixes
  • License server using port 443
  • Able to connect to Azure database
  • Better performance
  • Less bug