IBM API Connect Reviews

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.

• API management
• Securing enterprise APIs
• Metering
• Throttling
• Transformation
• Analytics
• Deployment on AWS

• Single entry point for enterprise APIs
• Basic OAuth
• Keys management
• Policy configurations are pretty easy.

• Ease of use
• Security
• GUI is pretty intuitive.
• Easy to configure security and generate API keys.

Components, like caching, should be implemented as policies, not requiring dependency on an external solution. Apigee provides caching as a policy.

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.

In-built policies and security functions.

Integration with DataPower as its API Gateway. Due to bugs in integration, we have to look for workaround on fixing and using DataPower as gateway. 

Have been working on this for three months.

We switched to APIC for easier management of APIs and to leverage its inbuilt policies, security features, and usage of DataPower as gateway.

Setup an "always and anywhere available sandbox" for experimenting and proof of concepts, because one will need to think and experiment much to use the tool.

It gives a holistic environment for us to set up the APIs and that's the main value that it adds. It gives end to end for us.

We moved from another manager to this one and latency has improved a lot. It has improved the latency response by maybe 20-25%.

In fact, we have had a discussion with IBM and it's agreed upon that they would give us the features that we have asked for, just in three months. We have asked IBM for scalability and for some other features that we wanted. We had a dialogue with them and in the end, they have agreed to provide us with features related to API setup and security. They agreed to give it to us in three months, so we are happy.

In regards to the stability, we are new to it, so it is OK right now. We haven't put much into it yet.

The scalability we have not tested yet; we are testing it now as we speak.

We do use technical support and are in constant contact with them. They are very good.

Previously, we were using Layer 7. The reason as to why we decided to switch solutions was because the current environment was not working for us.

I was involved in the installation process to some extent. I am from architecture, so usually the infrastructure team would be involved.

There are several other solutions that we evaluated but it depends on the capability that we are looking at.

Initially, we started off with one solution and then, moved on to another, as we found out that it's not helping us.

We do several things before selecting a vendor. It's not in my purview, but we do the product evaluation as well. Obviously, IBM is a big vendor and we are a big shop of IBM.

Go for it!

Getting a perfect rating depends on the product and how they give us support or not. We haven't gutted it, thoroughly. It is in production, but it's not perfected. Maybe in six months or more, we'll know more about it.

The most valuable features of this solution are:

• Integration with multiple services,
• Providing security,
• Being able to monitor, and
• Enabling customers using the secure gateway.

We belong to the healthcare industry, so it is beneficial to implement the API Connect solution to provide APIs that can integrate outside and inside our organization. It also provides overall solutions, i.e., API-based solutions to all the customers that we have.

I would like to see more caching and monitoring features implemented in future releases. It also needs to be a more customizable and flexible product.

In terms of stability, we are still prototyping the product. We have the older version, which is now stable, but the current version or the new version, that we are still prototyping, is still not 100% stable.

The scalability is pretty good.

We have used technical support. I would probably give them a 7/10 rating.

I was involved a little bit with the installation process. I found it complex, as there were lots of configurations involved in setting up the infrastructure and that everyone didn't have experience with.

We looked at several other solutions, i.e., both IBM and non-IBM products. However, since we had already used IBM DataPower, we thought we could reuse the same infrastructure. API Connect has DataPower built-in to it, thus we tried to reuse some of the existing functionalities.

The most important criteria while selecting a vendor are the product's support and operations.

Our company is an early adopter of this product so I would advise, at this point, to wait and then implement the solution.

The most valuable feature of this solution is to have the APIs available across different verticals in the company. IBM API Connect provides that capability for us, so as to expose the services as APIs.

It provides the use of services at a faster delivery; that's the main, important thing. It is less cost-effective.

We are evaluating the current capabilities. We have other products such as the IBM WSRR and we are trying to see how it fits with the IBM API Connect. So, we are just trying to evaluate it right now.

It needs to improve so that we can be successful in the company, as well grow the API footprints in the company.

We are using it for the last six months, so we haven't yet gone into production. We are hoping it will be a very stable solution.

Right now, it's not heavily used. So, we intend to use it in the next year.

Initial setup was very straightforward and not complex.

We looked at other solutions, namely Apigee. However, we didn't choose them; we are not taking it.

We have a lot of other IBM products, so it is much easier for us to have one vendor instead of multiple sets of products.

Go for it.

We are using the IBM WSRR solution for service-oriented active services. The API Connect is for lightweight services and obviously for customization purposes. We work with IBM a lot, so they recommended to us to go with the IBM API Connect solution because it is the future. That is why we have chosen the API Connect.

The main criteria while selecting a vendor is support, i.e., after we go live and not just from the product. A stable support customer trust factor is also a very important factor and that is why we have a lot of IBM products.

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.