Migrating from Astera 7.x to Astera 10

Astera 10 is a major release and not a direct upgrade of Astera 7.6. This means that migrating from Astera 7.x to Astera 10 won’t require you to uninstall Astera 7 since Astera 10 can be installed side by side with Astera 7 on a system. Astera 10 is backward compatible, and therefore, most of the flows created on Astera 7 can run on Astera 10 without modifications. However, as with the most major release of any complex software, we recommend that you upgrade your lower level environment first, so you have an opportunity to test and verify any existing flows. This will make it possible to identify any migration issues you may encounter early on in the upgrade cycle. In this document, we will cover how you can migrate from Astera 7.x to the all-new Astera 10.

Installing

The installation package for Astera 10 (64-bit) contains two setup (.exe) files:

• AsteraDataIntegrator.exe – for Astera client, and

• IntegrationServer.exe – for Astera Integration Server

The setup files for Astera 10 can be downloaded from the following location:

https://www.astera.com/download-center/

Click here to learn how to install Astera 10 client and server.

Licensing

Unlike the previous releases of Astera, Astera 10 comes with a single licensing key (for server) rather than two separate keys for Astera server and client. The licensing key for Astera 10 has changed which means you cannot use your Astera 7 key to register Astera 10. The single licensing key for Astera 10 is used to register Astera server and it controls how many clients can connect to the server as well as the functionality available to the connected clients.

If you’re planning to migrate to Astera 10, please contact [email protected] to get your new your Astera 10 license key.

Cluster and Server Management in Server Explorer

The Astera 10 client can be configured with multiple different servers, however, it can only connect with one server at a time. The jobs scheduled, queued or running on the other registered server will continue to run without interruption even if the client is not currently connected to the server.

All servers pointing to a single repository database will form a cluster of servers sharing the common workload of queued jobs. A cluster of v10 servers you configure will be up and running and processing jobs in a similar way to 7.6, despite the fact that the v10 client can only connect to and manage one v10 server at a time. You can see which server in the cluster has actually processed a job by right clicking the Cluster and opening Server Jobs window.

Repository

You need to set up a new repository to communicate with the Astera 10 server. While upgrading the previous releases of Astera 7, you would simply go to Server > Upgrade Cluster Database. However, while migrating to Astera 10, you need to set up a repository in a new database from scratch to communicate with the server(s) and store the record of server activity. To set up a repository in Astera 10, go to Server menu > Configure > Build Repository Database and Configure Server.

Follow through the steps explained in this article to build a cluster database and set up a repository in Astera 10.

Manually Migrating Existing Jobs from Astera 7 to Astera 10

Once you have built a cluster repository in Astera 10, the next step is to migrate the scheduled jobs you created in Astera 7.

1. For this, open the Job Scheduler in Astera 7 from Server > Job Schedules.

1. You will see all the scheduled jobs listed in the Scheduler. Select the jobs you want to migrate.

1. Click Export Schedule button in the Scheduler toolbar.

1. Point to the directory and folder where you want to save the scheduled jobs and click OK.

Now Astera will create a separate XML file with ‘.Sched’ extension for each scheduled job and save it in the designated folder.

1. A message window will pop up to notify that your scheduled jobs have been successfully. Click OK.

1. Now you have to import the job files in Astera 10 to complete the migration process. For this, open Astera 10 client and go to Server > Job Schedules.

1. This will open the Scheduler  tab. To import the existing jobs, click the Import Schedule  button in the Scheduler toolbar.

1. Point the path to the directory where you have saved the schedule files. Select all the scheduled jobs you want to import and click Open.

1. You can see that the existing jobs scheduled in Astera 7 have been successfully migrated to Astera 10 and a new Job ID has been assigned to each job.

Migrating Existing Jobs from Astera 7 to Astera 10 Using Pre-Designed Flows

Prior to any upgrade, we strongly recommend that you take a full backup of your repository database. Also, upgrading lower-level environment first (such as QA, UAT, etc.) is recommended prior to upgrading the Production environment. This will make it possible to sort out/resolve any issues before upgrading Production.

Steps to Upgrade:

Using Astera 7 client, run the following dataflow to export existing schedules into a comma-delimited file.

Download the attached dataflow: Dataflow_ScheduleExport7.df

Take note of any existing Cluster Settings. You can check it by right-clicking the cluster in Server Explorer and selecting Cluster Settings in the context menu. These settings will need to be re-configured manually after the upgrade.

It may be helpful to take screenshots of those settings for later reference. The settings include: Staging Directory, Purge Job Frequency Options, Email Notification Setup, and optionally, Server Profiles if a non-default profile was used prior to the upgrade.

Next, install Astera 10 client and server on your machine. You can read more on installing Astera 10 client and server in this document.

Open Astera 10 client. Go to Server menu > Manage > Build Cluster Database. Point it to the database hosting the Astera repository.

Use the dataflow below to import the schedules you exported previously in Astera 7.

Download the attached example dataflow: Dataflow Schedule Import

The dataflow will look like this:

Once the objects are properly configured, save and run the dataflow.

Next, open Server Explorer, right-click on DEFAULT and select Cluster Settings.

Now, manually re-configure the relevant settings. You can use the screenshots of Cluster Settings you previously took for reference in version 7. Optionally, you can manually reconfigure the Server Profiles setting if a non-default profile was used prior to the upgrade.

Now, restart the Astera server.

This completes the upgrade.

Migration Best Practices:

• When you are starting the migration process, it is recommended to keep Astera 7 and Astera 10 servers running in parallel. This is to avoid any interruption in jobs that are currently running.

• We also recommend you initiate the migration process with a lower-level, testing environment, and then promote your deployment to a higher-level environment as needed. This will help ensure smooth migration process with any flow compatibility issues spotted early in the transition cycle.

• A new feature in Astera 10 enables you to create an admin email to access the Astera server. As a result, you will also be able to use the “Forgot Password” option while logging in. Read this article to learn how to verify the admin email in Astera 10.