IBM Integration Bus Reviews

We are a system integrator and this is one of the products that we propose for our clients.

Some of our clients for this product are banks.

IBM Integration Bus is flexible, easy to use, and easy to configure.

I would like to be able to build an Integration Bus cluster that is active-active.

This is a scalable product.

We have five or six customers who are using it.

I have seen no problems with respect to technical support.

We have experienced no trouble installing this product.

It takes a few days to deploy.

We have a team of 10 or 11 people for deployment and maintenance.

The pricing could be improved to make it more competitive.

This is a product that I can recommend.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are working on MQ, soap and rest based services. Some clients are accessing our services and vice versa.

Yes IIB help us to shape up our organization in service oriented architecture. Usability has increased and integration has become easier.

Multiple protocols support,  development environment is user friendly.

Documentation is not easy to understand.

There should be inclusion of more and more adapters that make this product more usable.

I've been using IBM Integration Bus for four years.

IBM Integration Bus is a stable solution. As far as the technical side is concerned, we don't have an issue. 

IBM Integration Bus is easy to scale.

IBM technical support is fine, and we have a good relationship with them.

The installation is very simple. I've been working with the Oracle platform as well, and the Oracle platform installation is quite difficult compared to IBM Integration Bus.

We are working in the bank, and we implement everything internally ourselves. We are maintaining it, and we don't have to do too much. We have a separate team for maintenance. We have administrators as well on the operations side. They are looking after it.

When I compare it to other products that are available in the marketplace, I rate it better than others because it's easy to develop things, and it's easy to handle. I also use Oracle, and I prefer IBM Integration Bus to Oracle.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM Integration Bus an eight.

I'm responsible for Strategy and Architecture for an IT consulting company they are partners with IBM. 

I like that this solution is suitable for any size company. It's simple to use from a development perspective because the content is easily infiltrated in the eclipse infrastructure. It's also credible in all the application aspects and easy to integrate into the enterprise application landscape. Finally, there is also a good relationship with IBM itself that assists us in implementing. You can really use this architecture but you have to understand the technology itself. It means you can do everything with this technology on condition that implementation is carried out correctly but this is a general term and valid for all solutions on the market. IBM is offering with the Integration Bus a very robust and stable solution.

The solution itself is quite expensive for smaller companies because of a complex architecture setup if you just start. Easier and a more plug and playable solution which make an MVP easier in being able to show the value faster to the customer.

I've been using this solution for about 10 years in different projects and for different customers.

This is a very stable solution.

Scalability depends on the money that you have in your pockets. Technologically speaking, it's a scalable solution. 

I get good support from the IBM technical people. It also depends on your philosophy, how you implement this. I have a lot of very experienced people, but also a good relationship with the laboratories, which is also sometimes necessary when you're doing something new and a highly sophisticated implementation is required. You need to have a support team for the product development. 

The initial setup is straightforward, it's a simple solution. 

Evaluate and define a clear architecture, and set up a governance framework that includes a competence center that will take care of the usage, the licenses which will be needed, and do guarantee the reuse of interfaces and components.

I always suggest carrying out a proof of concept each time. People who are able to set this up and also monitor it, will discover how easy it is to customize and to integrate the architecture. The POC creates familiarity and also an understanding of the skill set required. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

• WebSphere MQ Connectivity: MQInput node and MQOutput node
• Load Management: We can configure more than one instance of an application
• High Availability (multi-instance broker)
• ESQ
• Microsoft .NET Support/.NETCompute node: This has helped us to reuse our existing .NET code
• Web Standards connectivity: HTTPInput node and HTTPReply node

• We have improved our productivity
• We can easily and quickly create and integrate applications
• With the help of built-in nodes, we are no longer required to create our own code for HTTPInput node, HTTPReply node, FileInput node, FileOutPut node, etc.
• Built-in parsers are helping us in rapid development
• Development is mostly just drag and drop, e.g., MQ integration
• Deployment is much easier now

• ESQL: ESQL requires some more functions e.g., encryption/decryption/hashing. Currently, we have to use .NET or Java.
• WebSphere MQ: This needs a web-based remote monitoring and administration panel.
• Oracle Wire Protocol ODBC Driver: This needs to be compatible with different versions of Oracle, at least Oracle 10G and above versions.
• A centralized log monitoring console is required where we can monitor all traffic (in/out) of the broker node.

We have been using this product for four years.

Stability is mostly fine. However, integration with Oracle is not good. Sometimes the Oracle Wire Protocol ODBC driver creates problems, especially if database links are used in SPs. We have to restart our service to resume connectivity.

Scalability is mostly fine. However, in the IBM integration toolkit, there should be something like “Solution Folder in Visual Studio” to keep related applications and integration services together.

Previously, we were using Microsoft Biztalk Server for middleware and integrations. Because of the obsolete version of Biztalk and the end of the support agreement with Microsoft, we decided to switch to some new technologies with advanced features where we can implement SOA services. Hence we decided to go with IIB.

It was a challenging task because we were moving to a new technology, especially from Microsoft to IBM. With the help of IBM technical sales staff, online help, and some trial and error, we now have a good implementation of IIB.

As a member of the technical implementation team, I’m not involved in pricing and licensing considerations.

While evaluating IIB, we also evaluated Oracle Service Bus (OSB) and the latest version of Microsoft Biztalk Server.

I would recommend implementing this with proper planning such as:

• Create and implement IIB in a High Availability (HA) environment
• Create all required integration servers (execution groups) and assign them with HTTP/HTTPS ports explicitly
• Configure SSL from the start
• Use proper naming conventions for integration nodes, integration servers, and queue managers.

My primary use case of this solution is for establishing an enterprise service between the orchestrated transactions of two different channels. This is the main purpose of this product.

There is a concept behind the project of this technology, the ESP technology, it is just the layer because of the bus between front systems and back systems, So if I want to change anything in the back system, no need to change in the front system, only this layer. So what do is, we make the integration of the system much, much easier and faster. So there is only  one layer to control the integration of the communication.

The resources about IBM are hard to find, and it is not enough material. Finding people who know this product is problematic.

The product is very stable. 

The scalability actually depends upon the number of users, channels and transactions per second. Horizontal it is hard to add more, but vertical is very easy.

Tech support is very good, but it takes time to resolve any issue.

I have prior experience with Oracle. The work bus and the the word map is totally different from Oracle.  In Oracle you're doing the job management most of the time, in IBM product, their version, it's much easier. You just try to sync with it and that's all. IBM is an easier product to use.

I also have prior experience with Microsoft, but that was in 2008. At that time, there were issues with integration

It is very straightforward. It is very user-friendly integration.

It is important to consider:

• API control
• Firewall security

I have no comment on pricing.

IBM recently changed the name of this solution to IBM API-Connect. With the new name, they have added two new features, such as connecting to the cloud. 

The IBM Integration Bus is a very strong, very easy-to-use product. 

We prefer it due to the fact that we can get support from IBM when we need to, as opposed to using open-source tools that do not have support.

Sometimes companies have systems from IBM, Oracle, HP, et cetera. IIB is a good candidate to enable all heterogeneous systems to exchange data smoothly without any effort.

The product is a user-customized tool so that you can adjust it to your specific needs pretty well with little trouble. 

The initial setup is easy.

While it is very user-friendly there is another open-source tool in the market you can use instead of it.

The integration could be better, especially when it comes to integrating with older systems or solutions. 

The solution needs to simplify its documentation, such as the user and operation manuals, to make them even easier to understand. 

I've been working with IBM products for 30 years or so. This particular IBM solution, however, I've dealt with for the last four years. That said, I have a lot of IBM experience. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The product is upgradable. There is the potential to scale. 

In the Middle East, the customers are looking for a company that can take over anything and handles everything if there are issues. The support is very reliable and helpful. They are responsive and knowledgeable and we are very happy with their capabilities. 

I'm also familiar with Apache Kafka. Kafka is much faster. The performance is much greater than IIB. IIB is not as fast as Kafka.

For myself, the initial setup was very easy due to the fact that I have worked with IBM for many years and I'm quite comfortable with the brand.

That said, the IBM environment is fairly complicated. It is much easier than other options, even so, and technical support is quite helpful if users run into issues. 

I am not a partner for IBM. That said, IBM has used me for consultation issues and training sources. I used to be a partner, maybe six years ago.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

The IBM Integration Bus platform is Advanced Enterprise service bus , Typically used in SOA Environments . with newer version it can work it container based platforms and can be used to implement Micro services.

We have implemented IIB/WMB Based Solution in multiple organizations helping them to adopt Service oriented architecture , and eliminating point to point integrations.

IIB helped our clients having clean Overall solution , doing decoupling between different systems , eliminating duplicate point to point integration points . replacing legacy integration products ,and having high performing stable trouble free Enterprise service bus

IIB is feature rich product it is hard to point to a single feature , but most important is IIB supports most communication protocols out the box (SOAP/REST/HTTP/MQ/JMS/TCP/Files) 

Native support of Asynchronous calls .  support of multiple message formats (XML/JSON/ CWF/CSF/SWIFT/HL7....)

Global Transaction Co-ordination

Horizontal and Vertical Scalability .

It would be better with more API management features. 

More Micro-service and container based support. IBM is already working on it on Version 11, but it still needs improvement. 

Also IIB have cloud version ,it is doesn't have all features of the On premise version , and needs more improvement . 

IBM Integration Bus is almost perfect in terms of stability.

We can easily do the required scalability with IBM Integration Bus. We have never faced an issue. Plus, it is very straightforward.

I didn't need to contact IBM technical support very much.

In older versions, the setup was very complex. In recent releases, it's been very straightforward.

 I am working in a consultancy company. We install this for most of our clients. We develop services for them using it.

IIB very flexible.nearly limitless , You can easily overload it with duties that it's not meant to hold. Organizations needs to have strong their architecture team and SOA governance during and After implementation .to avoid overloading the ESB Layer.

I would give IBM Integration Bus an 11 out of 10. I have tried solutions from competitors Brands. There is no comparison.

My primary use case of IBM Integration Bus is for designing and developing solutions. We use App Connect Enterprise as a micro ESB and, in cases where we need rapid development, as a microservices platform as well. I'm currently dealing with an on-premises version, but it's deployed on an internal cloud. 

One of the most valuable features is how seamless and easy to use this solution is. This is a fantastic solution and a very measured product. 

There are a couple of things I want improved, but I think they have already touched upon all those things in the most recent version. I'm not using the most recent version—I use a version older than the most recent—but I'm sure that if I looked into and explored it, I would see more support on the CI/CD and more support for unit testing automation. I've read that they released all these things in the new version of App Connect. Once I explore the new version of this tool, I'll probably have a better idea of suggested improvements. 

I have been working in IBM for almost 17 years now. 

This solution is stable. It's a fantastic solution and a very measured product. We only need one person to maintain the DevOps pipeline, but we do have a team of 10 developers to deliver the work.

IBM's technical support is fantastic. Their support process is very good. 

This solution is cloud-based. We are using it in a container image, so the one time CI/CD setup is there, in the pipeline setup, and after that the process is very seamless. We just check in our code, and then the pipeline creates an image of it and deploys it onto our private cloud platform. So it's very seamless and there's no hassle involved. 

Initially, we needed about three people for deployment: one for administrative activities, one with DevOps knowledge, and one developer. 

We implemented through an in-house team. I work as an architect, but we have a DevOps team that takes care of maintaining the pipelines and as-needed administration activities. 

I generally do not get involved in the licensing or pricing because I'm a hardcore technical guy, but I'm aware of the fact that IBM is highly expensive, so not everybody can afford it. All the products are licensed. 

I have heard of MuleSoft, a platform that provides a solution for API management, ESB, everything. When it comes to ESB, they have a package or facility feature for unit testing as well, called MUnit or something. From an ESB development point of view, this is the complete package. I was lacking these features in App Connect, but I heard that the latest version includes things like unit testing, automation features, all those things. I also heard that they added AI—I'm not sure where, but IBM is pretty big on that, as well as on adding more and more features in that area. 

I rate this solution a nine out of ten. This is a very measured tool and IBM has been doing a splendid job with this particular platform. Earlier, it was only possible to have an on-premises installation, but now that it's compatible with the cloud, it's a very seamless and fantastic tool. Especially with the current release, I really like this product. 

In terms of advice I would give to those considering implementation, I would say that there could be a problem with integration. Nothing to do with the tools, but from a resourcing point of view. I've seen that a lot of people with Java expertise can face problems when being introduced to this technology without proper training. When a Java developer gets into this particular technology and starts developing stuff, they may be unaware of certain best practices, certain standards, certain conventions that should be used. In my team, when we hire new resources, Java is an advantage for us and a person with Java knowledge is highly welcome, but when we look at their knowledge in the technology itself, there may be issues. This platform is complex and only a person with the right knowledge will be able to deliver. So my suggestion to those who are considering implementation: while resourcing, ensure that you've got the right knowledge on the architect side as well as the developer side.