Astera Data Stack
Version 8
Version 8
  • Welcome to Astera Data Stack Documentation
  • Release Notes
    • Astera 8.0 - What's New, What's Fixed, and What's Improved
    • Astera 8.0 - Known Issues
    • Astera 8.1 - Release Notes
    • Astera 8.2 Release Notes
    • Astera 8.3 Release Notes
    • Astera 8.4 Release Notes
    • Astera 8.5 Release Notes
  • Getting Started
    • Astera 8 - Important Considerations
    • Astera 8 - System Requirements
    • Configuring the Server
    • Connecting to a Different Astera Server from the Lean Client
    • Connecting to an Astera Server using Lean Client
    • How to Build a Cluster Database and Create a Repository
    • How to Login from Lean Client
    • Setting up a Server Certificate (.pfx) File in a New Environment
    • Installing Client and Server Applications
    • Licensing Model in Astera 8
    • Migrating from Astera 7.x to Astera 8
    • UI Walkthrough - Astera 8.0
    • User Roles and Access Control
  • Dataflows
    • Sources
      • Data Providers and File Formats Supported in Astera
      • Setting Up Sources
      • COBOL File Source
      • Database Table Source
      • Data Model Query Source
      • Delimited File Source
      • Email Source
      • Excel Workbook Source
      • File Systems Item Source
      • Fixed Length File Source
      • PDF Form Source
      • Report Source
      • SQL Query Source
      • XML/JSON File Source
    • Transformations
      • Introducing Transformations
      • Aggregate Transformation
      • Constant Value Transformation
      • Data Cleanse Transformation
      • Denormalize Transformation
      • Distinct Transformation
      • Database Lookup Transformation
      • Expression Transformation
      • File Lookup Transformation
      • Filter Transformation
      • Join Transformation
      • List Lookup Transformation
      • Merge Transformation
      • Normalize Transformation
      • Passthru Transformation
      • Reconcile Transformation
      • Route Transformation
      • Sequence Generator Transformation
      • Sort Transformation
      • Sources as Transformations
      • Subflow Transformation
      • SQL Statement Lookup Transformation
      • Switch Transformation
      • Tree Join Transformation
      • Tree Transform
      • Union Transformation
    • Destinations
      • Setting Up Destinations
      • Database Table Destination
      • Delimited File Destination
      • Excel Workbook Destination
      • Fixed Length File Destination
      • SQL Statement Destination
      • XML/JSON File Destination
    • Data Logging and Profiling
      • Creating Data Profile
      • Creating Field Profile
      • Data Quality Mode
      • Record Level Log
      • Using Data Quality Rules in Astera
    • Database Write Strategies
      • Database Diff Processor
      • Data Driven Write Strategy
      • Dimension Loader - Database Write
      • Source Diff Processor
    • Text Processors
      • Delimited Parser
      • Delimited Serializer
      • Fixed Length Parser
      • Fixed Length Serializer
      • Language Parser
      • XML JSON Parser
      • XML JSON Serializer
    • Data Warehouse
      • Fact Table Loader
      • Dimension Table Loader
  • WORKFLOWS
    • What Are Workflows?
    • Using the Workflow Designer
    • Creating Workflows in Astera
    • Decision Task
    • EDI Acknowledgement Task
    • File System Task
    • File Transfer Task
    • OR Task
    • Run Dataflow Task
    • Run Program Task
    • Run SQL File Task
    • Run SQL Script Task
    • Run Workflow Task
    • Send Mail Task
    • Workflows with a Dynamic Destination Path
    • Customizing Workflows with Parameters
    • GPG-Integrated File Decryption in Astera
  • Subflows
    • Using Subflows in Astera
  • Functions
    • Introducing Function Transformations
    • Custom Functions
    • Logical
      • Coalesce (Any value1, Any value2)
      • IsNotNull (AnyValue)
      • IsRealNumber (AnyValue)
      • IsValidSqlDate (Date)
      • IsDate (AnyValue)
      • If (Boolean)
      • If (DateTime)
      • If (Double)
      • Exists
      • If (Int64)
      • If (String)
      • IsDate (str, strformat)
      • IsInteger (AnyValue)
      • IsNullOrWhitespace (StringValue)
      • IsNullorEmpty (StringValue)
      • IsNull (AnyValue)
      • IsNumeric (AnyValue)
    • Conversion
      • GetDateComponents (DateWithOffset)
      • ParseDate (Formats, Str)
      • GetDateComponents (Date)
      • HexToInteger (Any Value)
      • ToInteger (Any value)
      • ToDecimal (Any value)
      • ToReal (Any value)
      • ToDate (String dateStr)
      • TryParseDate (String, UnknownDate)
      • ToString (Any value)
      • ToString (DateValue)
      • ToString (Any data, String format)
    • Math
      • Abs (Double)
      • Abs (Decimal)
      • Ceiling (Real)
      • Ceiling(Decimal)
      • Floor (Decimal)
      • Floor (Real)
      • Max (Decimal)
      • Max (Date)
      • Min (Decimal)
      • Min (Date)
      • Max (Real)
      • Max (Integer)
      • Min (Real)
      • Pow (BaseExponent)
      • Min (Integer)
      • RandomReal (Int)
      • Round (Real)
      • Round (Real Integer)
      • Round (Decimal Integer)
      • Round (Decimal)
    • Financial
      • DDB
      • FV
      • IPmt
      • IPmt (FV)
      • Pmt
      • Pmt (FV)
      • PPmt
      • PPmt (FV)
      • PV (FV)
      • Rate
      • Rate (FV)
      • SLN
      • SYD
    • String
      • Center (String)
      • Chr (IntAscii)
      • Asc (String)
      • AddCDATAEnvelope
      • Concatenate (String)
      • ContainsAnyChar (String)
      • Contains (String)
      • Compact (String)
      • Find (Int64)
      • EndsWith (String)
      • FindIntStart (Int32)
      • Extract (String)
      • GetFindCount (Int64)
      • FindLast (Int64)
      • GetDigits (String)
      • GetLineFeed
      • Insert (String)
      • IsAlpha
      • GetToken
      • IndexOf
      • IsBlank
      • IsLower
      • IsUpper
      • IsSubstringOf
      • Length (String)
      • LeftOf (String)
      • Left (String)
      • IsValidName
      • Mid (String)
      • PadLeft
      • Mid (String Chars)
      • LSplit (String)
      • PadRight
      • ReplaceAllSpecialCharsWithSpace
      • RemoveChars (String str, StringCharsToRemove)
      • ReplaceLast
      • RightAlign
      • Reverse
      • Right (String)
      • RSplit (String)
      • SplitStringMultipleRecords
      • SplitStringMultipleRecords (2 Separators)
      • SplitString (3 separators)
      • SplitString
      • SplitStringMultipleRecords (3 Separators)
      • Trim
      • SubString (NoOfChars)
      • StripHtml
      • Trim (Start)
      • TrimExtraMiddleSpace
      • TrimEnd
      • PascalCaseWithSpace (String str)
      • Trim (String str)
      • ToLower(String str)
      • ToProper(String str)
      • ToUpper (String str)
      • Substring (String str, Integer startAt)
      • StartsWith (String str, String value)
      • RemoveAt (String str, Integer startAt, Integer noofChars)
      • Proper (String str)
      • Repeat (String str, Integer count)
      • ReplaceAll (String str, String lookFor, String replaceWith)
      • ReplaceFirst (String str, String lookFor, String replaceWith)
      • RightOf (String str, String lookFor)
      • RemoveChars (String str, String charsToRemove)
      • SplitString (String str, String separator1, String separator2)
    • Date Time
      • AddMinutes (DateTime)
      • AddDays (DateTimeOffset)
      • AddDays (DateTime)
      • AddHours (DateTime)
      • AddSeconds (DateTime)
      • AddMonths (DateTime)
      • AddMonths (DateTimeOffset)
      • AddMinutes (DateTimeOffset)
      • AddSeconds (DateTimeOffset)
      • AddYears (DateTimeOffset)
      • AddYears (DateTime)
      • Age (DateTime)
      • Age (DateTimeOffset)
      • CharToSeconds (Str)
      • DateDifferenceDays (DateTimeOffset)
      • DateDifferenceDays (DateTime)
      • DateDifferenceHours (DateTimeOffset)
      • DateDifferenceHours (DateTime)
      • DateDifferenceMonths (DateTimeOffset)
      • DateDifferenceMonths (DateTime)
      • DatePart (DateTimeOffset)
      • DatePart (DateTime)
      • DateDifferenceYears (DateTimeOffset)
      • DateDifferenceYears (DateTime)
      • Month (DateTime)
      • Month (DateTimeOffset)
      • Now
      • Quarter (DateTime)
      • Quarter (DateTimeOffset)
      • Second (DateTime)
      • Second (DateTimeOffset)
      • SecondsToChar (String)
      • TimeToInteger (DateTime)
      • TimeToInteger (DateTimeOffset)
      • ToDate Date (DateTime)
      • ToDate DateTime (DateTime)
      • ToDateString (DateTime)
      • ToDateTimeOffset-Date (DateTimeOffset)
      • ToDate DateTime (DateTimeOffset)
      • ToDateString (DateTimeOffset)
      • Today
      • ToLocal (DateTime)
      • ToJulianDate (DateTime)
      • ToJulianDayNumber (DateTime)
      • ToTicks (Date dateTime)
      • ToTicks (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • ToUnixEpoc (Date dateTime)
      • ToUtc (Date dateTime)
      • UnixTimeStampToDateTime (Real unixTimeStamp)
      • UtcNow ()
      • Week (Date dateTime)
      • Week (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • Year (Date dateTime)
      • Year (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • DateToJulian (Date dateTime, Integer length)
      • DateTimeOffsetUtcNow ()
      • DateTimeOffsetNow ()
      • Day (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • Day (Date dateTime)
      • DayOfWeekStr (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • DayOfWeek (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • DayOfWeek (Date dateTime)
      • DateToJulian (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime, Integer length)
      • DayOfWeekStr (Date dateTime)
      • FromJulianDate (Real julianDate)
      • DayOfYear (Date dateTime)
      • DaysInMonth(Integer year, Integer month)
      • DayOfYear (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • FromUnixEpoc
      • FromJulianDayNumber (Integer julianDayNumber)
      • FromTicksUtc(Integer ticks)
      • FromTicksLocal(Integer ticks)
      • Hour (Date dateTime)
      • Hour (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • Minute (Date dateTime)
      • JulianToDate (String julianDate)
      • Minute (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • DateToIntegerYYYYMMDD (DateTimeWithOffset dateTime)
      • DateToIntegerYYYYMMDD (Date dateTime)
    • Files
      • AppendTextToFile (String filePath, String text)
      • CopyFile (String sourceFilePath, String destFilePath, Boolean overWrite)
      • CreateDateTime (String filePath)
      • DeleteFile (String filePath)
      • DirectoryExists (String filePath)
      • FileExists (String filePath)
      • FileLength (String filePath)
      • FileLineCount (String filePath)
      • GetDirectory (String filePath)
      • GetEDIFileMetaData (String filePath)
      • GetExcelWorksheets (String excelFilePath)
      • GetFileExtension (String filePath)
      • GetFileInfo (String filePath)
      • GetFileName (String filePath)
      • GetFileNameWithoutExtension (String filePath)
      • LastUpdateDateTime (String filePath)
      • MoveFile (String filePath, String newDirectory)
      • ReadFileBytes (String filePath)
      • ReadFileFirstLine (String filePath)
      • ReadFileText (String filePath)
      • ReadFileText (String filePath, String codePage)
      • WriteBytesToFile (String filePath, ByteArray bytes)
      • WriteTextToFile (String filePath, String text)
    • Date Time With Offset
      • ToDateTimeOffsetFromDateTime (dateTime String)
      • ToUtc (DateTimeWithOffset)
      • ToDateTimeOffsetFromDateTime
      • ToDateTimeOffset (String dateTimeOffsetStr)
      • ToDateTimeFromDateTimeOffset
    • GUID
      • NewGuid
    • Encoding
      • ToBytes
      • FromBytes
      • UrlEncode
      • UrlDecode
    • Regular Expressions
      • ReplaceRegEx
      • ReplaceRegEx (Integer StartAt)
    • TimeSpan
      • Minutes
      • Hours
      • Days
      • Milliseconds
    • Matching
      • Soundex
      • DoubleMetaphone
      • RefinedSoundex
  • Report Model
    • User Guide
      • Report Model Tutorial
    • Report Model Interface
      • Field Properties Panel
      • Region Properties Panel
      • Report Browser
      • Report Options
    • Use Cases
      • Applying Pattern to Line
      • Auto Creating Data Regions and Fields
      • Auto-Parsing
      • Creating Multi-Column Data Regions
      • Floating Patterns and Floating Fields
      • How To Work With PDF Scaling Factor in a Report Model
      • Line Count
      • Pattern Count
      • Pattern is a Regular Expression
    • Exporting Options
      • Exporting a Report Model
      • Exporting Report Model to a Dataflow
    • Miscellaneous
      • Importing Monarch Models
      • Microsoft Word and Rich Text Format Support
      • Working With Problematic PDF Files
  • API Flows
    • API Consumption
      • Consume
        • REST API Browser
        • Making HTTP Requests Through REST API Browser
        • Using REST Client Outside of the Scope of the Project
      • Authorize
        • Authorizing ActiveCampaign API in Astera
        • Authorizing Astera Server APIs
        • Authorizing Avaza APIs in Astera
        • Authorizing Facebook APIs in Astera
        • Authorizing QuickBooks API in Astera
        • Authorizing Square API in Astera
        • Open APIs - Configuration Details
  • Project Management
    • Project Management
      • Astera's Project Explorer
      • Connecting to Source Control
      • Deployment
      • Server Monitoring and Job Management
    • Job Scheduling
      • Scheduling Jobs on the Server
      • Job Monitor
  • Use Cases
    • End-to-End Use Cases
      • Data Integration
        • Using Astera to Create and Orchestrate an ETL Process for Partner Onboarding
      • Data Warehousing
        • Building a Data Warehouse - A Step-By-Step Approach
      • Data Extraction
        • Reusing The Extraction Template for Similar Layout Files
  • Connectors
    • Connecting to Amazon Aurora Database
    • Connecting to Amazon RDS Databases
    • Connecting to Amazon Redshift Database
    • Connecting to Cloud Storage
    • Connecting to Google Cloud SQL in Astera
    • Connecting to MariaDB Database
    • Connecting to Microsoft Azure Databases
    • Connecting to MySQL Database
    • Connecting to Netezza Database
    • Connecting to Oracle Database
    • Connecting to PostgreSQL in Astera
    • Connecting to Salesforce Database
    • Connecting to Salesforce - Legacy Database
    • Connecting to SAP HANA Database
    • Connecting to Snowflake Database
    • Connecting to Vertica Database
    • Setting Up IBM DB2 iSeries Connectivity in Astera
  • Miscellaneous
    • Cloud Deployment
      • Deploying Astera on Amazon Web Services
      • Deploying Astera on Microsoft Azure Cloud
      • Deploying Astera on Oracle Cloud
    • Context Information
    • Pushdown Mode
    • Role Based Access Control in Astera
    • Safe Mode
    • Server Command Line Utility
    • SmartMatch Feature
    • Synonym Dictionary File
    • Updating Your License in Astera
    • Using Dynamic Layout/Template Mapping in Astera
    • Using Output Variables in Astera
    • Using the Data Source Browser in Astera
  • Best Practices
    • Astera Best Practices - Dataflows
    • Overview of Cardinality in Data Modeling
    • Cardinality Errors FAQs
Powered by GitBook

© Copyright 2025, Astera Software

On this page
  • Astera 8.0 – What’s New
  • Astera 8.0 – What’s Improved
  • Other Highlights
  • Migrating from Astera 7.x to Astera 8.0
  1. Release Notes

Astera 8.0 - What's New, What's Fixed, and What's Improved

PreviousWelcome to Astera Data Stack DocumentationNextAstera 8.0 - Known Issues

Last updated 9 months ago

Astera 8.0 is a major release in Astera’s line of ETL solutions and is shipped with new features, existing feature updates, as well as a brand-new UI. Here’s a short summary of what’s new, what’s fixed, and what’s improved:

Astera 8.0 – What’s New

REST Server Design

We are now shipping a REST-based Astera server with the release of version 8.0. We have transitioned from .NET remoting to .

Introducing the Astera Lean client – A Modern, Scalable Architecture

You asked for an easier way to deploy Astera across a company network, and we delivered! This is good news for your IT administrators. We have introduced a lightweight version of the Astera client with the. Assemblies and DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) for most database drivers now reside on the Astera server instead of the client machines. Now you can scale horizontally and add more clients to an existing cluster of servers with minimum IT overhead.

SmartMatch Functionality

We have introduced the in Astera 8.0 to simplify complex mapping jobs in ETL flows. It uses a created by the user to resolve mapping issues that arise due to naming inconsistencies in the incoming source data. The Synonym Dictionary file is a simple txt file in which users can specify variations of the header name in a pipe delimited format and the Astera integration server will automatically read and match field names at run-time based on the predefined information in the dictionary.

Data Cleanse Transformation

is a new addition to Astera's library of built-in transformations. Data cleansing is an essential step in the data preparation process and the Data Cleanse Transformation makes it all the more convenient for users to cleanse raw data and present it in a more refined, standardized, and enterprise-ready format. Using the Data Cleanse transformation, users can:

  • Replace null strings and numeric values with blanks and zeros respectively

  • Remove extra spaces, unnecessary text and numeric characters, punctuations, line breaks, etc.

  • Change letter cases to upper, lower, or title case

  • Apply regular expressions and find-and-replace actions on datasets

  • Prepare raw data for transformation, validation, profiling, and record-matching functions

Dynamic Layout

Job Optimizer

Delivering on our promise of optimizing data integration processes for maximum agility and seamless performance, we have added the Job Optimizer functionality to the latest release of Astera 8.0. The Job Optimizer enables users to optimize ETL performance and minimize job execution time.

The Job Optimizer issues recommendations to optimize integration flows, at runtime in job trace. These recommendations can be removing repetitive sort operations on presorted data, applying an ORDER BY clause on database sources to run sort operations in the database, or any other suggestion to optimize your flow.

As a result, it helps bring a significant increase in performance by efficiently managing the RAM, CPU, network, and disk utilization while executing jobs.

The New Search Feature

A Search feature has been added to the Toolbox, Expression Builder, Server Log, and Job Monitor. This new Search bar enables better navigation through different features and components, resulting in better experience and improved user-friendliness.

In the Toolbox, the Search feature enables easy navigation across different sources, destinations, transformations, text processors, resources, and other components of the toolbox.

In the Expression Builder, the Search features make it convenient for users to find a relevant expression function without having to browse through the extensive library of Astera's built-in expressions.

In the Server Log, this feature allows users to look for particular jobs deployed, running, or executed on the Server with respect to JobID, Server Name, Component, Severity, and Error Info.

In the Job Monitor, the search feature allows users to look for jobs based on different criteria such as Date, Job Type, Job File, Server, etc.

Astera REST Web Service APIs

We have published an extensive library of Astera REST web service APIs. Now, you can perform a wide range of data integration functions by using APIs to directly communicate with the Astera server and get the required data. Here are the resources that are available for the users in the first round of the beta release:

  • Account APIs: Resources related to account login and user authentication.

  • Server APIs: Resources related to job monitoring, schedules, and server information.

User Roles and Access Control

  • Secure Domain Configuration – encrypts information exchange between Astera client and server through an SSL protocol

  • User Authentication – prevents unauthorized access to data

  • Role Management – enables administrators to centrally manage user access by creating custom roles and access controls

Astera 8.0 – What’s Improved

Server Monitoring and Job Management

Astera 8.0 includes advanced server monitoring and job management features to enable administrators to proactively manage job monitoring, prevent downtimes, and identify the causes of server failure. Moreover, in case of server failure or outage, users can generate a diagnostic file to get details about the state of the server and the machine where it’s deployed.

This diagnostic file contains information such as server status, server health, active connections, process memory size, thread count, installed drivers, etc. which you can use for troubleshooting and improvements. Furthermore, you can track, monitor, and manage the jobs scheduled, running, or executed on the server in the Job Monitor window.

Job Trace Improvements

The Job Trace window has been updated with an improved UI response time and better trace navigation. The trace refresh on the client is decoupled from the server writing to the trace. As a result, the client may not display all entries while loading a very fast and long-lived trace, which will ultimately improve the load time for long trace outputs. The server performance has also been optimized since the server uses bulk insert to write the trace output.

Here’s a rundown of the improvements in the job trace:

  • Refresh and Clear Trace buttons have been added to the monitoring toolbar.

  • Suggestions for job optimization are always displayed in the job trace.

  • Verification errors warnings or suggestions can be traced in the job trace.

  • The status of the job is also displayed by an icon depending on whether it is completed, queued, terminated, etc.

Workflow Performance Optimization

Another significant highlight of Astera 8.0 is the improvement in Astera server code to optimize the performance, reliability, and scalability of workflows. The workflow execution logic has been optimized to eliminate any chance of a workflow hanging amidst a session in any state (queued, running, or terminating), even if there are transient communication errors between the main server or cluster servers and the repository.

Significant improvements have been made to Resume and Terminate functionalities for workflows in Astera 8.0. The limitations in resuming complex, nested workflows found in previous releases have been resolved in Astera's latest release.

In Astera 8.0, while working with nested workflows (workflows that call other workflows within a master workflow), if a child component returns an error and is not executed successfully, the parent flow will terminate automatically. Likewise, when you resume a child flow that returned an error(s) and led to the termination of the parent flow, the parent flow will also get resumed automatically.

Parametrization

The parametrization functionality in Astera 8.0 has been improved to support expression compilation in variables. The syntax has been changed from ‘$ ()’ notation to ‘{}’. However, this update won’t affect the parameters incorporated in existing flows.

The current flows will continue to run seamlessly as before, without having to manually update the syntax. And once you save any flow that was using the previous notation ‘$ ()’ in version 8, it will automatically get converted to ‘{}’.

Other Highlights

  • Path Mappings tab added: A new tab for specifying client and server path mappings has been added to the Cluster Settings. This is particularly useful when the client and server reside on different networks or network file systems and their paths have to be mapped correctly to transfer files at run-time.

  • Option added to repair file paths: For better project management, we have added a new option to repair the file paths for files in any particular folder. This option is useful if you are working in a case-sensitive environment.

  • Shortcut for replacing parameters information for consolidated parameters added: Now you can replace the common parameter information for all objects in a flow with this command right from the dataflow screen.

  • Salesforce UPSERT is fully supported: Salesforce UPSERT is now fully supported. UPSERT uses an external ID field in the Salesforce table to match incoming data with existing records.

  • Keyboard shortcuts added and displayed: Keyboard shortcuts are enabled for various task windows. You can view the shortcut keys next to their respective commands.

  • Performance improvements when mapping complex trees: Runtime performance of the dataflows containing complex tree structures is improved.

  • New additions to the data providers list: We have added Tableau to the list of supported data providers.

  • SCD write strategy improved: SCD type 3 and type 6 are now supported.

  • REST call retries: For the REST calls running in timeout error, Astera will automatically make up to three retry attempts to process the call.

Migrating from Astera 7.x to Astera 8.0

feature has been added to some source objects in Astera 8.0. It makes it all more convenient for users to ensure layout consistency in integration flows. The Dynamic Layout feature eliminates the need and hassle of manually updating the mappings between different objects in a dataflow and ensures they’re all in sync with the source schema.

Astera 8.0 comes with enhanced , enabling users to manage data pipelines in heterogeneous and multi-user environments. Administrators can grant or restrict access to various users within the organization, based on their role in the entire data management cycle. The three-fold security mechanism incorporated in Astera 8.0 includes:

Improvements in List Lookup and DB Lookup transformations: New options added to the layout builder screen of and transformations. Now you can keep the source value for the values that do not match the replacing criteria in a list or a database table.

Pushdown mode is expanded and improved: More transformations and expressions are now supported in the . We have also improved the explanations for the verification errors for easier troubleshooting.

If you’re using an older version of the Astera Data Stack and are planning to upgrade to Astera 8.0, follow through the steps mentioned in document for a smooth migration.

Have any queries, issues, or suggestions? Reach out to us at .

RESTful web services
8.0 upgrade
SmartMatch functionality
Synonym Dictionary File
Data Cleanse
Dynamic Layout
role-based security features
List Lookup
DB Lookup
Pushdown mode
this
support@astera.com