Server enhancements, Improved UI, and a comprehensive data warehouse automation module — Centerprise 9 is our next-gen solution to handle all your data integration and warehousing needs.
In recent years, we have made significant improvements in Astera Centerprise. Our team focused on several innovations and fixes to create a more robust and agile data integration solution that empowers you to extract, cleanse, transform, validate, and load your data more effectively.
In our last update, we rolled out a production version of our API browser and improved cloud accessibility. With the release of Astera Centerprise 9, we’re pushing forward on our mission to create a comprehensive, end-to-end data management platform that can support users across an array of use cases from data ingestion and consumption to advanced reporting in the data warehouse.
Let’s check out the new additions and improvements in this release:
Introducing a Brand-New Data Warehousing Module
We have introduced a brand-new data warehousing automation tool: Astera Data Warehouse Builder (DWB) 9.0. It leverages Centerprise’s robust ETL and ELT functionalities, enhancing them with a number of features that enable users to develop finished BI systems in just months.
At the core of the product is the comprehensive data model designer that provides all the capabilities you need to design, test, and deploy your data warehouse schema.
With ADWB, you can reverse engineer source systems in minutes or create them from scratch. The models can be verified with a few clicks to ensure that available metadata is correct and that the relationships between entities are properly defined.
From there, you can move to build a comprehensive schema for your data warehouse. ADWB comes complete with advanced dimensional modeling options, including dimension, data/time dimension, and fact tables. You can also configure metadata elements to assign primary keys and surrogate keys or define how the data warehouse will handle different SCD types.
Once verification is completed, these models can be forward engineered in a database of your choice. We offer an array of on-premise and cloud databases to choose from, including the leading platforms such as Amazon Redshift and Microsoft Azure.
Our existing ETL/ELT functionalities come into play when it comes time to load the data warehouse. ADWB has added dedicated fact and dimension loaders to our toolbox. Now, instead of building complex dataflows, you can select a source system or table and map them to a loader while applying any necessary transformations using our built-in transformation toolbox.
The product supports hierarchical mapping from source data models to the destination data warehouse via a dedicated data model query object that helps significantly speed up data mapping during the ETL process.
Astera Data Warehouse Builder also has a robust OData service module that allows you to make the data warehouse available to query from leading BI and visualization tools like PowerBI, Tableau, Domo, and more.
Astera DW Builder Architecture Diagram
UI Improvements for Better Experience
We made some adjustments in the UI of the latest version of Astera Centerprise. The most notable change is the visibility of the server status on the right side of the main Centerprise toolbar. Now, you can check connectivity status at a glance.
Server Connectivity Status
Furthermore, we have removed some icons from the top of the server explorer to reduce clutter. These options are now available within right-click context menus.
Server-Related Enhancements
In Centerprise 9.0, we have modified the Server Connect UI to instances where the server is disconnected. In this scenario, options — including grid and toolbar buttons in the Job Scheduler, Job Monitor, and Server Log — will be disabled or removed, notifying the user when they are disconnected. These functionalities will be available once connectivity is restored.
We have also reduced unnecessary pop-ups which notify the user that the server is down. Given the availability of the server status (see above) option, this change will result in a more seamless user experience.
Change Your User Password with Ease
Many of our users asked us to give them the flexibility to change their password from within the Centerprise client.
Our new update comes with this functionality, allowing you to update your credentials using an easy two-step process:
- Right-click on the Default cluster node in the Server Explorer (this feature is also available from the User Menu on the top toolbar.)
- Select the Change Password from the context menu.
Change Password
This feature results in ease-of-security maintenance and enhances usability by allowing you to change user credentials at your convenience.
Preview Data and Run Jobs on a Remote Server
We have added a checkbox to the Cluster Settings tab to indicate when the client and server exist on the same machine or network. For instance, when submitting a job from the client on a local network that connects to a Centerprise server running on a Cloud VM instance.
Checking this option will cause the Centerprise client to create a mini archive with the flow document and any dependencies (sub-flows, shared actions, etc.) when running a job or previewing data on the Cloud server.
Please note that this feature does not transfer the actual data to the Cloud server over WAN. The data needs to be accessible by the Cloud server for the flow to succeed.
Cloud File System Functionality
Job Scheduler/Deployment
We have made some changes to the Job Scheduler to disallow editing the schedule grid while saving a schedule. It is advantageous in remote servers, where the saving request may take a few seconds to process.
Ready to test-drive Astera Centerprise 9?
Are you looking to try out our newest release? Click here to download a trial version for Astera Centerprise 9.0.
Authors:
Ammar Ali