We mainly use it for exchanging messages between application servers, back applications (e.g., databases), etc.
The message is delivered. This is the most important thing.
Overall, I have been satisfied with the solution's stability and scalability.
They could integrate monitoring into the solution, a bit more than they do now. Currently, they have opened the REST API so you can get statistic and accounting information and details from MQ and build your own monitoring, if you want. IBM can improve the solution in this direction.
It's highly scalable. It provides various ways to establish high availability and workloads. E.g., you can spread workloads inside of your clusters.
We have 20 engineers, admins, and integrators using this solution in our company.
I would rate IBM technical support as a four (out of five) because they are a big company. If you want to get through all the technical support levels, then you need to spend some time. However, this is normal for such a big company.
The initial setup is straightforward, but you need to take the platform into consideration. If you are talking about Linux, AIX, and Windows, then the setup is really straightforward. However, z/OS or iSeries from IBM are not so straightforward so you need to be familiar with those platforms.
It takes half a day to fully configure MQ on Windows and Linux, and a bit longer on AIX. For z/OS and iSeries, it takes about five days to fully configure their environments.
There is a different platform price between Windows, z/OS, and iSeries.
I would definitely recommend IBM MQ to other people who are looking to implement this solution. They are going in the right direction. Everything is really in place and can be fully obtained. For me, the solution is a perfect product.
I would rate this solution overall as a nine (out of 10).
What were other products on your shortlist?