Migrating from Astera 9 to Astera 10
Astera 10 is a major release and not a direct upgrade of Astera 9. This means that migrating from Astera 9 to Astera 10 won’t require you to uninstall Astera 9 since Astera 10 can be installed side by side with Astera 9 on a system. Astera 10 is backward compatible, and therefore, most of the flows created on Astera 9 can run on Astera 10 without modifications. However, the deployment archives (*.car files) created with previous versions are not directly compatible with v10.x. All the deployments must be regenerated and deployed again in the latest version. As with most major releases 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 in the upgrade cycle.
Note: In this document, we will show how you can migrate from Astera 9 to the all-new Astera 10. However, you can follow these steps to upgrade from version 8 to version 10 as well.
Installing
The installation package for Astera 10 (64-bit) contains two setup (.exe) files:
AsteraDataIntegrator.exe – for Astera client
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
Like Astera versions 8 and 9, Astera 10 also comes with a single licensing key (for server) rather than two separate keys for Astera server and client. However, the licensing key for Astera 10 has changed which means you cannot use your Astera 9 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 sales@astera.com to get your new Astera 10 license key.
Cluster and Server Management in Server Explorer
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 v9. You can see which server in the cluster has actually processed a job by right clicking the DEFAULT node in Server Explorer and opening the Job Monitor window.
Repository
Upgrading Existing Repository
Astera provides an option to make an in-place repository upgrade which means that if you don’t wish to set up a new repository when you shift to v10, you can just use your existing one from the previous version and upgrade its cluster database. All the jobs scheduled in the repository used in v9 will appear in v10 after the upgrade.
The following steps explain how to upgrade an existing repository for migration from v9 to v10:
In Astera 10, go to Server > Manage > Upgrade Cluster Database.
Provide credentials of the version 9 repository and click OK:
Now go to Server menu > Manage > Server Properties.
In the Server Connection Properties tab, click on the ellipsis button next to Cluster DB Info.
In the Database Connection window, provide the credentials of the repository you just upgraded and click OK.
After completing this step, we recommend that you restart the Integration service.
Creating a New Repository
If you wish to set up a new repository in Astera 10, go to Server menu > Configure > Build Repository Database and Configure Server.
Follow through with the rest of 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 9 to Astera 10
In case you chose to build a new cluster repository in Astera 10, your next step is to import all the scheduled jobs created in Astera 9.
For this, open the scheduler in Astera 9 from Server > Job Schedules.
You will see all the scheduled jobs listed in the scheduler. Select the jobs you want to migrate. To select all jobs, you can also use the shortcut key Ctrl+A.
Click on the Export Schedule icon in the Scheduler toolbar.
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.
A message window will pop up to notify that your scheduled jobs have been exported successfully. Click OK.
Now you need to import the scheduled jobs in Astera 10 to complete the migration process.
For this, open Astera 10 client and go to Server > Job Schedules.
This will open the Scheduler tab. To import the existing jobs, click the ‘Import Schedule’ button in the Scheduler toolbar.
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.’
You can see that the existing jobs scheduled in Astera 9 have been successfully migrated to Astera 10 and a new Job ID has been assigned to each job.
Migrating Existing Jobs from Astera 9 to Astera 10 Using Pre-Designed Flows
After building a new cluster repository in Astera 10, an alternate way of shifting all the scheduled jobs from Astera 9 to Astera 10 is to use pre-designed flows.
Prior to any upgrade, we strongly recommend that you take a full backup of your repository database. Also, upgrading a 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 9 client, run the following dataflow to export existing schedules into a comma-delimited file.
Follow this link to download the dataflow: Dataflow Schedule Export
Next, open the downloaded file in Astera 9. The dataflow will look like this:
Note: Prior to running the dataflow, you will need to update the Database Table Source object to point to the database where the Astera repository resides. Also, in the properties of Delimited File Destination, set up an appropriate file path where you want your file to be saved.
Once the objects have been configured, run the dataflow. This will create a CSV file containing data of all the schedules that existed in v9.
Next, take note of any existing Cluster Settings. You can check it by right clicking the cluster in the 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, etc.
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.
Important Note: This will reset the repository.
Use the dataflow below to import the schedules you exported previously in Astera 9.
Download attached example dataflow: Dataflow Schedule Import
The dataflow will look like this:
Note: Prior to running the dataflow, in the properties of Delimited File Source, you must import the CSV file you created in v9 that has data of all the schedules. Also, you will need to change the configuration of the Database Table Destination object to point to the database where Astera 10 repository resides.
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 9. 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.
You can download the flows by clicking on the links below:
Dataflow Schedule Export (70 KB)
Dataflow Schedule Import (60 KB)
Migration Best Practices:
When you are starting the migration process, it is recommended to keep Astera 9 and Astera 10 servers running in parallel. This is to avoid any interruption in jobs that are currently running.
We also recommend that 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.
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