Manjunath-V - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Member Of Technical Staff at Tata Consultancy Services
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Reliable with message transformation and an easy setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is easy."
  • "The GUI part could be better."

What is most valuable?

I haven't used 100% of the IBM product. That said, the message transformation is very good. My application may not always be running, yet even if it is off, whenever I stick on my applications, I get all the messages that I'm supposed to get. Also, the sending functionality of the application may not always be on. I can keep sending the message, and they will get my messages when their applications turn on.

The initial setup is easy.

What needs improvement?

The GUI part could be better. The command line part is fine if the person knows the commands. However, we started using it on the GUI. It needs more direction, and it needs to be easier to understand. If the connectivity is not happening between the receiver and sender, it would be ideal to have some kind of a GUI that helps me to find the issue. Right now, whenever the connection is not happening, I use the debug a lot, and I use it to see configurations. I'd rather just have a message in the GUI that can say, for example, "The port is not enabled. The port is wrong." 

I used to get an issue with the connection. Maybe the configurations are perfect. However, the issue is on the other side, where maybe the component is down. I will only come to know that when I ping or ask the other person. Instead of that step, if there was a GUI that would tell me exactly what the issue is would make troubleshooting clear.

In general, they need better visibility and not just the GUI design side. They need something that elaborates to the customer or user where the issue is. 

Technical support needs to be faster and more knowledgeable. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for more than four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Product-wise, there is no problem with the stability.

That said, when there are a lot of messages, I may need to increase the bandwidth or the queue size. If I have to increase the queue size, maybe I can increase it to even a million, however, in the down sessions, when I extract the transaction, it takes a lot of time. When I want to see what information is inside the queue when I extract it, it takes much more time, which could be looked into. It might be a performance issue or something. It might not happen every time. Whenever there is an issue with a large set of transactions, for example, if, in a minute, you get a lot of transactions, we might have an issue. Still, it rarely happens. 

Buyer's Guide
IBM MQ
March 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have had a limited number of users. We haven't tried scaling since we are rather small. There are very limited users. 

How are customer service and support?

I have raised a couple of tickets with IBM support. The one thing I say is, all the support members are not always knowledgeable. I need a very senior person when I need something. Whenever I log a ticket, there will be one person who will not have the information to help, and I need to escalate. Every time I have to push and ask for somebody more senior, only I can get help.

What is expected is, as soon as we give some logs or share some issues, that we get a person to help immediately. However, that's not the case. It takes too long. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have not worked with other products. 

How was the initial setup?

In terms of the initial setup, we never faced any problems. It's quite easy. Even the cloning and queue managers are really good. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'm not involved on the licensing side. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have only really been into IBM MQ. It's a good product at the moment. I didn't get an opportunity to look into or work with other products.

What other advice do I have?

We're IBM partners. 

So far, I am satisfied. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Integration Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Robust, reliable, and has good documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "I haven't seen any issues with respect to the message loss."
  • "While there is support for API, it's not like the modern API capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

We use it as our enterprise messaging bus, not from the transformation use cases. It's mainly from the messaging use cases only. We use it for connecting to mainframes predominantly.

How has it helped my organization?

It was the main messaging bus for us for a very long time. Therefore, we have applications connecting, and even some of the modern applications are still using MQ. From a company's productivity perspective, we see a lot of benefits. It's all point-to-point connectivity. For any point-to-point messaging needs, MQ is very good.

What is most valuable?

The reliability is great. You will not see a case of a message loss in IBM MQ unless there's a queue full or there's some issue with the capacity of the queue. I haven't seen any issues with respect to the message loss. That's the main thing I like about MQ.

It's very robust.

It's a stable product.

Support is helpful and there is lots of good documentation available. 

The solution can potentially scale. 

What needs improvement?

While there is support for API, it's not like the modern API capabilities. If you want to automate the creation of queues and topics, IBM provides command-line utilities. It does provide API capability; it's just not that complete.

They should make CI/CD available. There is no CI/CD support from the product. Maybe MQ should think about the modern way to handle deep-based development. 

For how long have I used the solution?

As a user, I have about eight to nine users of experience with this solution. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, we have no problems. It's very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, in terms of the implementations that we have currently, it's not quite scalable. The implementations that we had were more active-passive kind of implementations up until now. There are product features that came up that allow it to scale. We understand it is scalable. However, we still need to explore it. There's a new HA capability that has come from IBM, which is a cloud-native replica set way of doing it. It's possible, it's just more difficult how we have it arranged.

We have a user base of millions and maybe 50 to 100 developers working on the solution. 

With MQ, we are trying to reduce usage since we have better products to support JMS. Most of the applications are Java-based applications, which have native support for JMS. We only use MQ right now for mainframe use cases. For all the other messaging use cases, we use Solace.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is quite good. They are some of the best. They are responsive.

Since we've used IBM for a very long time, we need to rely on them less. Most issues can be dealt with by looking at the documentation, which is available online. You often do not even have to reach out to support. That said, if you do, they are great.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution. 

How was the initial setup?

From an implementation perspective, it was hard for the features that we were using. However, recently, it has become quite easy to implement.

The setup team is a bigger team due to the size of MQ in the company, which is quite huge. We have around 200 managers and the size of the team is around 20 members and they can all assist with deployment tasks.

What about the implementation team?

The initial setup is done by our deployment team. In fact, I currently work in pipeline development for MQ, so it's easy to implement.

What was our ROI?

Returns are quite good for the amount that you pay, since, with IBM products, you see fewer bugs.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't have any information related to licensing costs. 

We likely have an enterprise license, based on the size of infra that we have. My understanding is it is not very expensive. However, for a new company, it may be pricier.

We get everything in a bundle. There are no extra costs involved. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I didn't look into other options. When I arrived at the company, MQ was already there. They've used it for even longer than I have - for maybe 15 years. 

What other advice do I have?

We are customers and end-users.

We have various versions that we use, including versions 7 and 9.1. We have both cloud and on-prem deployments and mainly deal with on-premises. 95% is on-premises. 

If you're looking for a guaranteed messaging platform, MQ is quite good. That said, it might be expensive for new organizations. If you're looking for a cheaper option, maybe you may need to look for other MQ open-source protocols or open-source products. You may not get the same guaranteed message delivery experience that you have with MQ. However,  it might be more affordable. With MQ, from a reliability perspective, you see very few bugs. It's been running in the bank for a long time. We have very few cases where we had to reach out to IBM support. It's just too bad they do not have CI/CD capabilities.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
IBM MQ
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about IBM MQ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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Manoj Satpathy - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant consultant at vvolve management consultants
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Good publish and subscribe features but needs a front-end monitoring tool
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is quite helpful."
  • "If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great."

What is our primary use case?

There were some long-running processes where it was timing out. We got the request from this source application, and we put the data into IBM MQ. Then, we read the data from IBM MQ before doing the rest of the processing. Especially for real-time processes, we have just decoupled it into two different ways to ensure there is no time-out.

What is most valuable?

The publish and subscribe features are the most useful aspects of the solution.

It's not too difficult to set up the solution. 

It's stable.

Technical support is quite helpful. 

The moment you send the data, there is no latency there.

We haven't experienced any data loss. 

What needs improvement?

If they could have some front-end monitoring tool that could be easily available for the team to use, that could be great. While you may not be able to edit your messages, at least if you could look at them, see the queue, and what's inside, et cetera, that would be helpful. We'd like visibility on the health of the environment. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. In fact, we have not seen any issues. Only recently have we observed an issue. There was a limit on the number of messages it could contain. We are having an issue now, however, we have not usually seen any issues related to IBM MQ. Therefore, in general, the solution is stable. I'd rate its reliability eight out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't seriously explored the scalability of the product and therefore don't know the full scope of scalability.

We handle about 300 to 400 transactions per day. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of support we get. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have previously used TIBCO EMS as well. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty easy. It's not that complex. I'd rate the ease of implementation at a seven or eight out of ten.

The deployment time is pretty short. It's not a long process. 

In an integration scenario, like payment processing, where the payment has to go to the backend system, SAP, or talk to multiple applications, due to the fact that it's a lengthy, complex business process, we just decouple it. Some of the information we get immediately after receiving the request, and we pass on the information to the customer. Then, we put the payload into the IBM MQ, and then we started processing from IBM MQ. So there are integrations that sometimes need to be done or worked with. 

What about the implementation team?

We have an admin team that does the configuration and setup of the solution. They can do it in one or two business days. 

What was our ROI?

We have witnessed an ROI while using this product. For example, we've had no data loss since using the solution

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

A different team handles the setup, and likely they also handle the licensing. I don't have any visibility on the cost of the product. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm a user and customer. I'm not a core developer of IBM MQ. However, I'm a user of IBM MQ.

I'd recommend the solution to others. I'd rate it seven out of ten overall. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Enterprise Architect & Solutions Architect at AIA Australia
Real User
A family of message-oriented middleware with a useful trace and tracking feature
Pros and Cons
  • "I think the whole product is useful. Their database and all is very good, and the product is fine. The fact that it ensures message delivery is probably the most important thing. I also like that you're able to trace and track everything. If it doesn't arrive at the destination, it will go back to the queue, and no message will be lost."
  • "They probably need to virtualize the MQ flow and allow us to design the MQ flow using the UI. It would also help to migrate to the cloud easily and implement AWS Lambda functions with minimum coding. If you have to code, then just with NodeJS or Java."

What is most valuable?

I think the whole product is useful. Their database and all is very good, and the product is fine. The fact that it ensures message delivery is probably the most important thing. I also like that you're able to trace and track everything. If it doesn't arrive at the destination, it will go back to the queue, and no message will be lost.

What needs improvement?

They probably need to virtualize the MQ flow and allow us to design the MQ flow using the UI. It would also help to migrate to the cloud easily and implement AWS Lambda functions with minimum coding. If you have to code, then just with NodeJS or Java. 

Many things should be done out of the box, like MQPUT directly to databases or MQGET to link to the main database. MQ should be able to connect to any language and just do it whether you're using mobile apps or web apps. It should be possible. 

The other probably more key thing is that to get IBM on-premise is hard because there are no freely available videos and courses. Technical support in Australia could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used to be an MQ specialist 20 years ago, and now I'm a solutions architect and consultant who sometimes recommends this solution to clients.

How are customer service and technical support?

I think IBM technical support isn't too bad. IBM support can be a bit slow. Someone should be able to check on the problem straight away. 

I know that IBM in the States is very good. You can get good IBM staff and engineers and architects 24/7 or from 09:00 to 05:00. They have highly skilled and highly experienced staff there. Here in Australia, it feels like it's run by an account manager and run by salespeople. It should be run by architects and engineers and not by the account managers and sales teams.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I think IBM needs to look at its pricing. The prices of IBM products should be simple. The old way of pricing should now be moving on to the cloud to be pay as you go, a plan-based kind of pricing.

To become competitive, they actually need to move to AWS and Azure. If they really want to be highly available, they can have a highly available location, and charge another price.

What other advice do I have?

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

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Websphere MQ Specialist at a maritime company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy to use, stable, and offers great technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution can scale well."
  • "There could be a better front-end GUI interface for us, where we can see things more easily."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is primarily used for business transactions. It's used for financial transactions as well. Those are the two main use cases. We exchange information with our in-house applications before we supply information to our customers and so on.

What is most valuable?

The messaging queue is the main feature that we use. We use other products like publish and subscribe, which are very useful to us as well. 

We can share data and other people can subscribe to it. 

The solution is very stable.

The solution can scale well.

We've found the installation to be extremely straightforward and well laid out.

It's easy to maintain, easy to administer, and easy to see what's going on there. Overall, it's a good product.

Technical support is excellent.

What needs improvement?

The way the solution provides us with the product and the way we use it gives us what we need. We don't actually have any issues with it. 

There could be a better front-end GUI interface for us, where we can see things more easily. However, apart from that, it works well. 

The pricing is definitely could be cheaper. Also, the support model, even though it's very good, could be cheaper as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for about 25 years or so. It's a good amount of time. I have a lot of experience.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product offers good stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable in terms of performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product scales well. If a company would like to expand, it can do so. It's not a problem.

It's hard to say who exactly is working on the solution at this time. We have around 30,000 people working on it, in some way or the other.

We've got to keep using it for the foreseeable future. We don't see any reason not to as it provides us with a good solid platform. We have no reason to change anything.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have found the technical support to be very good. They are responsive and knowledgeable. They are also very friendly. We are satisfied with the level of support we receive. As soon as we raise any issue, they get in touch with us and sort it out. It's great.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution. We started with IBM MQ a long, long time ago and we stuck with it.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not complex. It is a very simple installation. I've been provided with instructions that make the whole solution extremely easy to download and install.

The entire process is very fast. It only takes about 30 minutes to deploy.

We have different departments that can handle deployments. We have about 100 people on our team that can handle this type of assignment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This is a licensed product. We do pay for it.

While, of course, it would be better if it was cheaper, the service they provide with it, including the maintenance facilities they provide, is very good. We're quite happy. Most people have to use what IBM provides, however, it could be a cheaper license.

What other advice do I have?

We're just a customer and an end-user.

I'd recommend the solution to any organization.

I'd rate it ten out of ten. It really provides everything we need.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
AdelAmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration developer at Central bank of Egypt
Real User
Top 20
An easy-to-deploy solution for exchanging information between applications
Pros and Cons
  • "It is useful for exchanging information between applications."
  • "It could always be more stable and secure."

What is our primary use case?

I am an integration developer at a bank, and we use IBM tools to develop our solutions. We use IIB (version 10), IBM App Connect (version 11), IBM MQ (version 9.1), IBM web servers, and IBM ODM. We use IBM MQ for exchanging messages between applications.

What is most valuable?

It is useful for exchanging information between applications. 

What needs improvement?

It could always be more stable and secure.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about three years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I didn't use anything before IBM MQ.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward. It took less than a minute.

What about the implementation team?

We didn't use any integrator. We have a team of about five people who work with this solution. We have developers, a team lead, and a project manager.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Developer at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Easy to manage, it's the most robust product I've worked with
Pros and Cons
  • "The first things are its simplicity and its robustness. Compared to any other product, it's the most robust I've worked with. And it's extremely easy to manage."
  • "The worst part is the monitoring or admin, especially in the ACE or Broker. There is always a problem of transparency. In MQ you can observe any process and you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but with the ACE or Broker, it's a problem monitoring the HTTP inputs. It's like a black box."

What is our primary use case?

In our company, it's the main hub for our whole CRM solution. MQ manages things through the Broker.

What is most valuable?

I like the whole idea. But the first things are its simplicity and its robustness. Compared to any other product, it's the most robust I've worked with. And it's extremely easy to manage.

What needs improvement?

The worst part is the monitoring or admin, especially in the ACE or Broker. There is always a problem of transparency. In MQ you can observe any process and you know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, but with the ACE or Broker, it's a problem monitoring the HTTP inputs. It's like a black box.

The reason that I'm emphasizing monitoring is that I used to work for the company that produced the administration and monitoring tools for IBM. There was a lot of competition and a lot of confusion in the market. When I moved to this company I actually used my previous experience and wrote my own tools. I am not much of a C# programmer, so I was struggling a bit. I know the concepts, but I was missing some straightforward support from IBM. They were selling it as a part of Tivoli, but you needed to implement the whole Tivoli infrastructure. If you had some other monitoring provider it was a bit of a pain. That is my concern here.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been certified as an MQ specialist since 1997 so I have about 23 years' experience in this field. I've been using it since version 2.0. Currently, I'm in production support and supporting version 9, mainly.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. I'm working for a FT 500 company, a global company employing about 60,000 people, and we've been using this product ever since I joined the company in 2003. We haven't had a single major performance issue or crash.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. We have gradually increased our usage over time.

How are customer service and technical support?

I am satisfied with the support from IBM. To be honest, I used to be an IBM trainer for this product, so I know people there. The only issue I have is that if the product goes out of service, it's difficult to get PMR (Problem Management Report) for it. In production, a lot of businesses tend to stick with the older versions.

How was the initial setup?

I've been doing it for over 20 years, so it's straightforward to me. Beginners might struggle with the initial settings, like user rights and the basic stuff, but setting up MQ is fine.

What other advice do I have?

Before joining this company I was mainly consulting for various companies in Germany, and I noticed the core problem was always that in projects where MQ was implemented, they were targeting too low on the management food chain. You need that to go as high as possible because it changes the whole paradigm, your ways of thinking. A lot of the implementations were bad because they were partially patching some problems at the bottom level. The whole strategy was never oriented to messaging. My suggestion would be to be aware of that. Go global from the start. Don't address things partially.

There is a team of four people who supervise all MQ activities here.

I would rate IBM MQ at 10 out of 10, but ACE or Broker are between eight and nine, because of the lack of transparency.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user631662 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Provides a lot of value in moving patient data from the entry point until the patient gets out of the building.

What is most valuable?

It's wonderful and is our primary backbone for moving data across different applications, within our company. Especially when we're talking about the healthcare and pharmacy industries, where we have patients' critical data, this is what we use to move data across. It's our backbone for data transmission.

The important thing for us at this point is the amount of data that we move, the guaranteed delivery and message affinity that it offers. These are very critical features when you talk about patient data.

How has it helped my organization?

It has definitely brought a lot of benefit into our organization, especial when you talk about applications talking to each other. For example, when you look at a patient's experience, i.e., from the moment the patient comes in, sees the doctor, the doctor makes a lab/pharmacy order and by the time a patient goes through the lab, the data needs to be there. It provides a lot of value in moving the patient data from the entry point until the patient gets out of the building.

What needs improvement?

One of the features to pinpoint is migration. When we want to migrate from one version to another, it takes years. So, definitely, we want to see some solution for IBM's standpoint, in order to make it easy for the customers to migrate from one version to another.

There are some operation challenges; however, it could be not because of the product but instead in terms of how we use it. We might be looking for improvements by adding some self-service capabilities, in order to go through the hoops of different teams to get the objects created. Thus, this will make it easy for the developers to access some of those things.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no issues in regards to the stability or scalability so far. Like I mentioned elsewhere, I've been using it for years now and it has really matured, at this point. We are really happy.

How is customer service and technical support?

Lately, quality of the technical support is not that good, as it used to be in the past. IBM supports us from the infrastructure's standpoint to the part where they provide us product support as well. So, one of the things that we did notice recently was that the qualified people who were supporting all this stuff are not there anymore.

What other advice do I have?

It is important to understand how to implement it and for what exactly you want to implement it. Sometimes, we get into a situation where you may not be choosing the right solution and may not really need MQ to support your product. You may be expecting something that MQ doesn't offer, so it is important to understand your business requirements and the features that MQ offers, in order to see if it is effective in implementing the solution.

The important thing while selecting a vendor is to help the customer go through the implementation phase. One of the typical situations that we run into are the people who you're interacting with, i.e., from a customer's standpoint, the vendor may or may not have the comparable knowledge that is required to make them move to where they want to go. That's the challenge we face across all our vendors. It doesn't have to be an escalation all the time so as to get what you want. The person you're working with should be knowledgeable enough to take the customer from the start to the end.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free IBM MQ Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free IBM MQ Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.