Astera 10.1 - Release Notes
The Astera Data Stack has evolved quite a bit in recent years. Astera 10.1, our latest release, brings an armada of new features and enhancements, including some new connectors, GIT functionality, and more!
Astera 10.1 also brings Astera's API Component to the user. With Astera, users can now enjoy the competitive edge of Astera’s powerful ETL engine to create code-free integrations and publish them through natively designed REST APIs to enable real-time data sharing between different departments within an organization, across platforms, or external partners without compromising security.
To further talk about the details of each component, here is what Astera 10.1 has to offer.
New Features
Astera Dataflow Component
MongoDB Connector (Beta)
MongoDB is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program. It lets the user store data in flexible, JSON-like documents with optional schemas. This means that fields can vary from document to document and data structure can be changed over time.
With the release of Astera 10.1 comes the MongoDB Connector to the Astera toolbox. This will allow the user to configure a MongoDB Server as a source when creating ETL pipelines on the Astera designer.
The MongoDB Source object can be brought onto the designer through drag and drop. It looks like this:
Once dropped, it can then be configured through the Properties menu by right-clicking on the object and selecting Properties. As you can see below, the connector asks the user to input a lot of different values,
From entering the address of the Primary Server Cluster connection to allowing the object to have a read preference, the MongoDB Source object allows for a range of functionality.
The object is useful for using MongoDB as a source to perform all kinds of transformations as well as loading onto destinations.
Between the configuration of the MongoDB Source is the presence of an in-built filter using which data can be transformed as well,
To learn more about the MongoDB Source connector, click here.
Parquet Connector (Beta)
Apache Parquet is a column storage file format used by Hadoop systems such as Pig, Spark, and Hive. The file format is language-independent and has a binary representation. Parquet efficiently stores large data sets and has the extension of “.parquet”.
Astera 10.1 also brings the Parquet Source and Parquet Destination connectors to the Astera toolbox. The user can simply drag and drop the respective objects and configure them to read and write from and onto Parquet format files.
Some key features of Parquet, concerning Astera, are,
It encodes the data.
It stores data in a column layout.
It offers the option of compression with a lesser size post-compression.
Parquet File Source
The Parquet File Source object can be found in the Sources section of the Toolbox.
It can then be configured by opening the properties. Simply right-click on the object and select Properties from the context menu.
Parquet File Destination
Similarly, Astera also brings the Parquet File Destination object to the Destination section of the Toolbox,
It lets the user fetch and map data from various kinds of sources that the Parquet format supports.
Once we open the properties of the Parquet File Destination object, we can view the following:
As you can see above, the object even lets the user select from compression methods which include:
Snappy
Gzip
For more information on the Parquet File Source and Parquet File Destination objects, click on the links below,
GIT in Astera Data Stack
GIT is an essential part of data integration and has a high application in the industry. It allows you to create a repository, clone a repository as well as create branches from the master branch to work on. With that essential a tool, Astera 10.1 saw fit to introduce the functionality of GIT in Astera.
Astera provides GIT options where the user can create and work from branches, push and pull from a remote location and make changes, all by their application
Within Astera, repositories can be cloned and opened:
As you can see above, Astera offers every essential GIT functionality that the user can employ, including Fetch, Merge, and Clone as well as viewing Branch History.
GIT in Astera also lets the user resolve any conflicts that may arise between branches.
Conflict resolution in GIT makes it more feasible for the user to keep track of what branch contains which information.
For more information on GIT in Astera, click here.
Full Client with Built-in Server for Centerprise Student
Astera 10.1 brings Centerprise Student, a full client with a built-in server. This means that students, when using Astera, don’t have to install client and server applications separately.
It certainly makes operations more convenient.
Full Client with Built-in Server for Report Models
Astera 10.1 brings the availability of a full client which has a built-in server for Report Models.
This means that users do not have to install the Server and Client applications separately, but rather just the convenient installation of a single server-client integrated application.
RM Enterprise
With the release of Astera 10.1, we bring you Report Models. It lets the user access the complete functionality of Astera's Report Model module, with a separate server for Client-Server communication.
RM Enterprise offers the full services of this module, including defining a report model to create a reusable extraction template.
Astera API Component
Astera is a one-stop platform that allows the user to Consume and Manage APIs in a code-free environment.
With Astera, the user is provided with both a client and a server application to install. Instead of the Integration Server, which is used for Centerprise installation, Astera utilizes an installer called the Astera Server.
Once both are installed, the user can access all features of the product.
API Consumption
Astera 10.1 brings a list of enhancements and new features to the API Consumption module of Centerprise.
Additional Notes
For existing customers of Astera 10.0 and earlier versions, a repository upgrade is required, alongside the re-generation of the project “.car” files and re-deployment, to upgrade to 10.1. They can update to 10.1 from any other earlier versions too.
This concludes the round-up of new features and improvements in Astera’s 10.1 line-ups.
If you have any suggestions or feedback or would like to request a new feature, visit Astera Support or email at support@astera.com.
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