IBM API Connect Reviews

Most of the business value that we are getting out of this solution, is that it provides DevOps integration and a catalog for microservices. We are able to share those APIs instantly within the organization; even if we want to share it outside publicly, then we can have those capabilities.

There is a trend to move towards microservice-based solutions, where we have to decouple all our legacy SOA-based services, when sometimes it takes an iterative approach to come out with what you need. Instead of that, we have this microservices solution, where you can just enable the required part in quick delivery using DevOps. These are the main benefits of this product.

Mostly, I would like to see more tools that are DevOps-friendly. We would have more capability to interact with the catalog and inventories, so a more DevOps-friendly solution is needed.

Stability has still not matured. We are still growing with the industry. We will find out after some time how it is going. But, as of now, it's stable.

Right now, in terms of scalability, everything we have is on-premise. However, we have this Bluemix capability, with which we can scale as and when we need.

We have used IBM professional support/premium support. We use them for any of the solutions, such as if we need some guidance on the future roadmap as to how it's going, etc; we engage them. They are excellent. They are always not only there to help us resolve the problem, but also to be able to guide us as to how the trend is going and what we should start thinking in regards to those changes.

We have this monthly inter-tech meeting, where we go through as to what is going on in the market, how the industry is going, and how we can utilize that in order to start serving the business, with an expedited return on the investment. So, this API, DevOps, and microservices are the things which are happening right now.

The most important criteria while selecting a vendor are that they should be able to help us not just with solving problems, but they also need to advise us in terms of how the trends are moving and how we can be strategic partners, instead of it just being a one-time solution.

Advice depends; if you have a preferred technology and IBM has a solution for that technology, then I'd definitely advise you to use more microservices with the API Connect and the DevOps, to provide quick returns for your business. It will be more valuable to you.

This solution is primarily used for workflow applications. Specifically, it is used for web applications with complex workflows that have many users.

The solution helps. We have Domino servers for all our web applications.

The ability for all of our web applications to share standard functions and documents easily is valuable.

Automation for our Domino applications could be improved.

We primarily use the solution for distribution.

The technical support and the user interface are good.

IBM is also a bit pricey. On top of that, they have bugs that need to be fixed.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is not scalable.

Technical support is okay. I had to call once for billing. We also had a connection issue. They didn't answer very quickly unfortunately.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup isn't too hard, but it's not easy either. We didn't deploy anything. We just added a gateway.

We used a local broker to assist in the implementation.

Right now, we are evaluating other options, including Axway, Apigee, and Tyke.

In the 2018 version, the setup is less complicated, but it takes longer.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

For on Premise Solutions:

Out of the box policies for Gatewayscript, JWT generate and validate. Oauth support .

Since it runs on top of Datapower, all Datapower based custom policies can be utilized and exported to API connect but its not straightforward/simple process.

Export of Analytics data in CSV format.

API connect is far better, faster and sleek as compared to IBM API management.

API connect support better error handling scenario with additional policies and catch node.

We utilize API connect to proxy to backed micro services or Datapower. We also do JSON to SOAP mapping / rest to soap apis, which is a very common pattern. We use it for any lightweight rest/soap message processing , analytic gathering and API usage policy enforcement.

IBM has improved this product significantly in last 2 years but it is still not stable and require further improvements. There are several issues administering the product. Features like , taking manual back up is still not available through GUI. The API manager cmdline is only accessible using one Admin account.

IBM recently added a feature to do autoback up in recent API connect firmware releases but its not very user friendly.Also the exported backup can not be unzipped and is not readable.

IBM info-center help documentation also needs improvement. Competitive product like Apigee provide out of the box policies to run Javascript, JAVA and better/flexible logging policies.

Apigee cloud provides various test tools where APIs performance can be tested from different regions in the world. As of now, as per my understanding IBM doesn't have similar test assist tools in Bluemix cloud .

Troubleshooting any issue is very difficult as it runs on Datapower so Datapower know how is required. Also you need to log on to multiple VMs/devices including Datapower to troubleshoot if errors are not properly handled.

IBM definitely needs to improve their customer support process for their new products as it demands more attention from customers because of large number of defects, long learning curve and lack of documentation.

1.5 year

We lost the old configuration during firmware upgrade of API connect.

IBM API management did have several stability issues, where working in different tabs in browser cause issues saving the configuration changes.

Also IBM API management is very slow and its inbuilt test tool is crappy as it takes around 1.5-2 mins to test any API after configuration changes.

IBM API connect is far better but we still haven't stress/load tested apis,so wouldn't comment on it.

One example of instability, We lost the old configuration during firmware upgrade of API connect.

For IBM API managment , some times config replication in Management cluster might take as long as 2 minutes so change in one API manager might not be reflected quickly in another API manager. Also API management GUI need to refreshed in browser to see latest state.

6

4

I have used APIGEE in a different project.

IBM infocenter for IBM API management and Connect is still not very helpful.It takes lots of reading and terminology know how to correctly configure it.

Initial set up was done by IBM but new VMs are configured by us.

Not sure.

Not sure.

No.

Troubleshooting any issue can be very difficult.

The most valuable feature for me is the ability to distribute work among our API developers, so we don't have to do all the work as IBM API Connect administrators and IBM DataPower administrators. This simplifies the way our partners can access our API's.

Overall, it brings us closer to better API management in our organization. The next step for us would be to improve the whole solution by going to the cloud. That's what I'm looking at.

It simplifies development and allows us to do more for less money.

Based on my meetings at this conference, I'm satisfied with their roadmap, where they're going. Possible improvement is mainly around having more of the cloud oriented architecture bringing stability in adding new capabilities around security.

Stability has improved greatly with the latest releases. There were some struggles in the beginning. There were some components that were not stable. They weren't behaving consistently through environments when we moved stuff from development to demo to prime. I think core functionality is pretty stable but there are things on the outskirts that weren't so stable.

IBM DataPower is at the core and we can easily add stuff as we need or as our licensing allows. So I think that it's pretty scalable.

The technical support is good. We got some help from their experts.

We were using IBM DataPower without any additional layer. By adding this new obstruction layer with IBM API Connect, we're simplifying development and improving our interactions with our partners. It becomes more compatible to the industry standard having the API management system in place.

The setup is complex but we didn't expect any simple things at such a large scale. It's just too many moving parts - IBM API Connect consists of three main components and they all have to be synced up. There's a lot of setup and networking and then you have to adapt it to your own environment.

Microsoft, IBM and CA Layer 7. IBM had the most capabilities that were based on IBM DataPower and could fulfill all of our requirements, even though the timescale was longer than we expected it to be.

When considering a vendor we just go for an industry leader, making sure that their technology stack aligns with our technology stack. We look at their reputation and how good the support is with the other products and what kind of relationship we have with account managers from that organization.

You should consider how much value you can derive specifically from the solution with all the features that are available. For instance, the main value for us was in organizing the API's and splitting work among several development teams.

I primarily use API Connect as a front end for any station, through which you can expose services to external or internal customers.

API Connect's best features are its data gateway, one of the strongest in the market, and its API manager, which has the local assembly transformation UI, which helps transform services from Maximal to JSON or vice versa.

API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database.

I've been using API Connect for over eight years.

There are some issues with API Connect's stability, with parts going down abruptly sometimes. Its stability doesn't compare well to Epigee or Kong API, and I would only rate it seven out of ten.

API Connect is easy to scale, I would rate it nine out of ten.

IBM's technical support is terrible - they're incompetent and slow to respond, even sometimes not responding at all until they have every bit of information.

Negative

I previously used Epigee, Kong API, and 3scale.

The initial setup was a bit tricky and required a lot of installation and system administration skills. I would rate the setup two out of ten. The deployment took around two minutes and could be automated.

API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten.

I wouldn't recommend choosing API Connect unless you have a big budget and need an enterprise solution. I would give API Connect a rating of seven out of ten.

We have been using this product for banking, insurance, and government use cases. Perfromance-wise it is very good. It has been improved a lot from the beginning, from API Connect 4, 5, and now we have the latest version of it. The product is available in various forms which gives us the flexibility to propose solutions to our customers.

Any new company starting with APIs, this product is very helpful for learning how they can export their business functions and data to the outside world. It's easier for them to expose their business functions for various use cases.

This product is well integrated with other products. Its ability to interact with IBM Secure Gateway and other products is the core feature. Also, the lead time to put it into production is relatively short and that is something customers are pleased with.

In terms of stability, I think it needs some improvement when it comes to externalizing the analytics data. The analytics collected with this product are part of the product database. If we could push the analytics data to an external data source, the customers could use it for historical purposes.

It is scalable.

Technical support is very good, helpful.

The setup is pretty much straightforward.

I rate this solution a nine out of 10. It has all the core features that allow any small company to start with the API calls. There are Essential, Professional, and Enterprise versions. The product is in many forms, like docker, for example.

I recommend this product. Take a look at it.

V3 is way better then v2, and v4 has further improvements. We have the ability to secure, control, transform, catalogue and optimize access to our APIs for external and internal partners and developers.

The APIs are exposed to B2B partners in a secured, and better way. Internal re-usability of APIs are encouraged by cataloguing all the APIs.

It lacks the ability for billing and metering the API usage to invoicing in v3, however, v4 does have this. Automation of deployments is needed.

We've used it over a year, v3 was purchased in Q2, 2014.

Manual steps for deployment is needed.

No issues encountered.

No issue with scalability as the run timefor API Management is proven and time tested i.e. Datapower which all fortune 1000 companies use.

The IBM customer rep was very helpful in the POC phase, and helped us escalate custom/new features which we requested.

Ir's excellent.

No other product was used, and the service was just exposed by Datapower.

Initial setup was straightforward as 50% of the solution was already in place. IBM API runs on IBM Datapower so the setup was only needed for IBM API Management itself.

We did it in house using the same set of Datapower developers supported API Management.

We also looked at WS02 which was way too complex and needed almost 14-15 VMs to run. As we had Datapower, it was a natural choice for us.

If the customer is already using IBM Datapower then it is a no brainer that IBM API Management will complement their existing investment.