IBM MQ Reviews

We use IBM MQ as a reliable way of integrating different applications. Our transaction service operates using IBM MQ for organizing the asynchronous interaction between different applications and the core banking system. It is easy to organize parallel reading and writing, and you can easily link two IBM MQ servers using the remote queue feature. We also use IBM MQ in web services which are developed using IBM Integration Bus. MQ helps us scale web services and organize parallel execution.

IBM MQ helps us scale our applications and balance our applications' performance. MQ is quite reliable. In some cases, our application became simpler and more reliable simultaneously.

Reliable integration between MQ servers. IT helps us create flexible integration solutions.

MQ needs instruments for connection with new modern queues like Kafka or RabbitMQ.

We use IBM MQ for message transmission between our customers, and their agents or global message service providers, such as SITA or ARINC, for tier one critical applications.

Applications are time critical, and IBM MQ has played a significant role in ensuring fast, reliable message transmissions. With IBM MQ in place, fear of messages getting lost in the case of an unplanned failure is almost none.

• Data integrity, reliability and security are very important to our business.
• No messages are lost, and recovery is good in case of any serious failures.
• No dependency on the end party service's run status.

No technical issues come to mind.

In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side.

We use queue managers/concentrators for message flow going upstream and downstream on applications with enterprise licenses.

Adding concentrators was great improvement, but it lacks the SonicMQ CAA (continuous availability architecture). 

The most valuable features are queue managers and CCDT, which is the common purpose of most client applications.

SonicMQ CAA (continuous availability architecture) functionality on auto failover and data persistence should be made available without a shared drive, as it exists in multi-instance queue managers.

IBM MQ appliance has pricing options, but they are costly. 

Enterprise messaging with international clustering in 120 data centers in 82 countries around the world. 

It is the most reliable product that we have ever used.  

It runs everywhere, from the mainframe in the US to the PCs in the Gobi desert attached to an analog modem. 

There is not much room for improvement, except it could get a face lift with a modern marketing campaign. 

99.999 percent availability for less than a penny per message over the past 25 years.  IBM MQ is the cheapest software in the IBM software portfolio, and it is one of the best.

IBM MQ is one of the oldest, most underrated products in history. 

This product has helped integrate between applications, reduce rework, and costs by reusing working components of existing applications, such as mainframe applications.

At Citibank, for example, they could utilize the already working components in the legacy system and integrate them with web, mobile, and tablet-based applications, instead of developing three separate applications in each of these technologies. This tremendously reduced efforts, costs, errors, and timeline.

• Can process large amount of messages in a small amount of time.
• Integrates between distributed systems: For example, it can help integrate processing between mainframe, client-server, web-based applications by integrating the messages, supporting Service Oriented Architecture.
• It helps avoid rework by using already developed and working features of the application.

Many customers are gravitating towards open source products such as RabbitMQ, or going for a web-based package.

Also, the level of training as well as product marketing for this product are not that great. You rarely find a good training institute that provides training. Many of the architects in several organization are neither aware of the product nor interested in using it. IBM should provide good training on products like this to me and other candidates and post us to the US or UK where we can provide excellent support to the clients using the product.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Level of support with IBM WebSphere products, including IBM WebSphere Commerce server, IBM WebSphere Portal server, and IBM Websphere Integration server is fantastic.

For clients such as Target, IBM provided excellent support for IBM CICS Web Services, as well as IBM WebSphere Integration server, by having a dedicated IBM team in the USA that provided support.

Not applicable.

Setup has to be done by the team from IBM. Client just needs to enjoy the excellent support.

Pricing could be better, as with all IBM products. But their performance in production, along with security and scalability, will pay returns in the long run.

There are other products available, such as TIBCO ESB, and we have many
clients who are using that.

Middleware family of products such as WebSphere MQ, MB, TIBCO ESB, IBM ESB, and MuleSoft ESB offer excellent choices in architecture and re-engineering of software architecture, and should be the first choice, instead of building from scratch. If anyone recommends rebuilding from scratch, such an architect should not be working for your organization.

IBM needs to protect its products, as well as the engineers and architects who recommend those products.

We use MQ for guaranteed delivery and once only delivery of important business to business transactions.

We use persistence messaging to ensure messages are not lost in case machine is restarted.

We have implemented business to business transactions over MQ messaging. The guaranteed and once only delivery ensures business integrity.

Reliability of message transmissions and ability to replay messages in case message ends up in backout queues.

It needs a User Interface which is better than the aging MQ Explorer. The existing solution MQ Explorer is outdated.

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

The technical support is good.

We have always used MQ.

The setup was straightforward for simple usage. Load balancing is more complex.

I think the pricing is reasonable, especially with IIB as a part of it.

We did not evaluate any alternative solutions.

Get a good MQ expert to get it right from the beginning.

One of the most important features is data persistence. Anytime there is a failure or an unexpected outage, the data is still there. That is one of the biggest benefits of MQ on WebSphere.

One of the things we did not see meeting our need was the lack of integrated monitoring for both IIB flows and MQ's. You have to use different tools for that, i.e. - MQ Explorer for the queues and IIB toolkit/web viewer for IIB apps and flows. If we could integrate the monitoring of both the flows and the queues in one product, that would be great.

Similarly to deploy the flows we need to use IIB toolkit and then to run MQ Scripts – we need to use a different tool. Since IIB and MQ goes hand in hand – it would be nice if the tools were integrated as well.

3 years.

The stability is pretty good, so far. We had some challenges with some of the clustering during initial setup. But once that was done properly, it was quite stable.

That's one of the shining features of MQ, that scalability. It is very scalable.

Technical support is good.

This is something that I inherited. There was a legacy system that was already using MQ.

There are a lot of things that MQ can do, so the configuration setup needs some involvement.

Engage IBM and MQ experts from the beginning on the architecting and the proof-of-concept. There are a lot of configurations and a lot of things that IIB can do. If you do not do properly early on, then it's going to be difficult to find those things, go back, and make those changes.

One of the most important things when selecting a vendor is definitely their ability to meet our functional needs. On top of that, we are looking for partners that are going to be around in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. We want dependability, longevity, and somebody who's going to be around when we need them.

Reliability is the most valuable feature. MQ is used to support critical business applications.

The installation of product upgrades and patches is very difficult. It requires the use of the IBM Installation Manager (IM). The original IM data location used for installing the base must also be used for the installation of product upgrades and patches. In the Network Deployment edition, upgrades and patches need to be installed in the deployment manager and node agent profiles. I would improve this area by eliminating the need for the IBM Installation Manager.

We have not had stability issues.

We have not had scalability issues.

Technical support is excellent.

We had no previous solution.

Setup was complex. It requires a lot of components to be configured.

Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs.

We didn’t look at other solutions.

Use the new and lightweight version (Liberty) to lower licensing costs. It is also easier to upgrade/maintain.