IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM Integration Bus comparison

IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

IBM DataPower Gateway Features

IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

• Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
  
• DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
  
• Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
  
• Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

• Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
  
• Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
  
• Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
  
• Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

Reviews from Real Users

“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

“You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

IBM Integration Bus is a market-leading software solution for application integration. It facilitates universal connectivity across enterprise systems, applications, and data, and offers a full range of integration capabilities on a flexible, secure, high-performance platform. You can use IBM Integration Bus to connect apps regardless of the communication formats or protocols they support. This connectivity enables interaction and data exchange among your varied applications in an adaptable, dynamic, and extensible infrastructure. IBM Integration Bus routes, transforms, and enriches messages from one location to another. It offers support for a wide range of functions, including routing, manipulating, filtering, enriching, monitoring, distribution, collection, correlation, and detection.

You can choose between IBM Integration Bus Advanced Edition, which is appropriate for a production setting, and IBM Integration Bus for Developers (Developer Edition), which is cost-free for development and testing purposes.

The interactions with IBM Integration Bus can be split into two categories:

1. Development, testing, and deployment of applications. To program your applications, you can choose from one or more of the available options:
   
   • Patterns offer reusable solutions that distill a tried-and-true strategy for resolving a typical architecture, design, or deployment task in a specific context. You can use them as-is or tweak them to meet your needs.
     
   • Message flows describe your application's connectivity logic, which specifies the precise route your data takes in the integration node and, consequently, the processing that the message nodes in that flow perform on it.
     
   • Message nodes contain the integration logic that must be applied to your data when it passes through your integration node.
     
   • Message trees describe data in an efficient, format-independent manner. Many of the included nodes allow you to study and edit the contents of message trees, and you can add additional nodes to your own design.
     
   • You can implement transformations using graphical mapping, JavaTM, ESQL, and XSL, and choose based on the expertise of your workforce without having to provide retraining.
     
2. Operational management and performance. The following features of IBM Integration Bus support your deployment's management and performance:
   
   • A wide range of administrative and system management choices for developed solutions.
     
   • Support for a variety of hardware platforms and operating systems.
     
   • A scalable, high-performing architecture built on the needs of traditional transaction processing environments.
     
   • Tight integration with software solutions from IBM and other suppliers that provide similar management and networking services.

IBM Integration Bus Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing IBM Integration Bus. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

• Use the platform’s powerful capabilities to handle various integration requirements to meet the demands of any size project.

• Help your entire organization make better business decisions by offering quick access, visibility, and control over data as it moves through your business applications and systems.

• Connect using a variety of diverse applications and web services, eliminating the requirement for complex point-to-point connectivity.

• To make the most of your existing Microsoft.NET expertise and software investment, use the extended support for Microsoft applications and services.

• Provide a standardized, simple, and flexible integration base to allow you to more quickly and effectively serve business needs and scale.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Integration Bus stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust data enrichment and its event correlation tool. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Richard W., Chief Executive Officer at Responsiv, writes of the solution, “It reduces the need for programmers of consumer applications to understand where data is sourced, or how it is combined. It allows us to avoid the need for consumers to understand multiple API protocols and security arrangements, and in some circumstances can reduce the impact of systems being unavailable.

Another PeerSpot reviewer, an Integration Architect at a tech services company, notes, “One of the most valuable features is how seamless and easy to use this solution is. It's compatible with the cloud, it's a very seamless and fantastic tool.” He adds, “I rate this solution a nine out of ten.”