webMethods Integration Server Reviews

I must be blunt. The solution is really hard to use, as the manual and documentation fail to provide proper explanations, especially to people who are first time users of webMethods, Software AG. I struggle with the installation. I sometimes think that the Integration Server is fine and that I had no problem with the API gateway, only to find myself having to redo this, as I lack a dedicated person who can instruct us on installation. I must rely on the Software AG forum. 

The installation process should be simplified for first time users and be made more user-friendly. 

I started using webMethods Integration Server around a month ago. 

I do not have the privilege of contacting technical support, so I try to make use of the information on the internet to self-learn. 

Prior to webMethods Integration Server, we worked with TIBCO BusinessWorks. This we did for another client. As some of the prospect companies already use webMethods Integration Server, we decided to undertake learning its use. 

The installation process should be improved for first time users, as it is quite difficult, and it should be made more user-friendly. 

I cannot comment on the pricing, as this is in the purview of my boss, from whom I received access to download the product. My role is solely to explore the solution's capabilities. 

There are five people, myself included, who are involved in learning about the solution for the initial project. 

A person who plans to use the solution should purchase a license or subscription, so that he will have someone to instruct him on its use. Operationally, I consider the solution to be quite good. I am referring to the PSR involving the middle integration service development. All the features seem to be there, including SSIS, SQL Server Integration Service and UI. There is a need for much scripting of it. On the development side, webMethod is quite good.

As the solution is good overall, I rate it as an eight out of ten. 

Primary use case is to provide ESB for legacy and SOA services, Business Process Management with BPMS and API Gateway for external partners.

We moved from EAI to SOA architecture while moving to webMethods. Both of these decisions made the reusable services approach available across the organization.

Best feature is Insight for monitoring, and as a debugging tool. It has saved us a lot of time during crisis situations.

The product needs to be improved in a few ways. First, they need to stabilize the components of the whole platform across versions. Also, they should stop replacing old components with brand new ones and, rather, improve by evolution.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

Average. No super-fast responses, no problems ultimately in resolving, and also no long, unresolved issues.

Complex, regarding previous architecture and full SOA stack deployment.

Microsoft BizTalk, JBoss SOA.

It is a bundled product stack for A2A and B2B usage. It is one of the best products which I have used during my integration career.

It has all the features required to integrate and manage file transfers, Partner Management, logging mechanisms, adapters for mainframes, SAP, and many others.

Need to see more API portal features like monetizing APIs and private cloud readiness.

I have been using this product stack for several years now.

There were no deployment issues.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues on-premises, but I have yet to check with the virtualization concepts and cloud scalability coming up.

Customer service is good.

Technical support is good.

We did not try another solution previously.

The setup was well-documented.

We implemented with an internal team and we had vendor support.

It is worth the cost.

We checked with TIBCO for EAI and the MQ series for messaging.

It is a good product stack.

Having experience with various EAI and ESB tools like Oracle Service Bus (former BEA Aqualogic) and Webmethods summary would be that everything can be done with any technology.

However the difference may be the time needed in order to implement the same integration features based on the existing product features.

From my point of view a good EAI and ESB solution needs to have what Webmethods offers

• a layer on top to isolate developers from the J2EE implementation ie to avoid implementing integration services in pure Java as if you were just coding the integration in Java
• Provides needed adapters yes, but with an intuitive front end that allows you to configure and use them (e.g setup number of retries for transient connectivity errors) rather than program in Java to implement calls to use the adapters
• A platform that allows continuous integration with a deployment engine and dependencies (and their changes) resolved and centralized in the server as a repository.

Some features reviewed

• Unit testing & Debugging capabilities: Webmethods allows you to debug your services in a step by step mode with variable watchers whereas in other programming oriented EAI solutions the testing in not dynamic and we can only rely in SOAPUI executions and reviewing returned XMLs and logs. From my point of view this is a decision driver.
• Data Mapping capabilities and XML management: In Webmethods you don’t need to work with XML parsing (if you don’t really want to) and data mapping and transformation is natural and based on UI drag&drop capabilities (No need to use XQuery or XPath if not needed). In webmethods you work with the Pipeline concept and needed transformations using a GUI designer. Canonical document transformations can be created fairly simple. Document structure/schemas are centralized in the server repository so there are no discrepancies when a document structure changes. If a document structure changes all services using that document get automatically updated. I still recall how complicated it was to manage XML transformations, parsing and schema dependencies within other EAI packages. Mapping was basically relying again on coding, XSLT transformation and library dependencies.
• In other solutions, basic tasks (like setting up a DB connection and test that) should not start a huge discussion troubleshoot thread leading the developer to spend most of his time troubleshooting and discussing about technical issues e.g not why he/she cannot connect to the database.
• Deployment and code changes: Webmethods has a central repository where an app dev resource is locking a given resource. Until that resource is unlocked nobody else can work on that item. Once a component is changed there is no deployment, changes are already in that environment. Once the code has been changed and unit tested migrating this to the next environment is a matter of a couple of clicks (no need to restart the server or wait minutes before you can see the changes). This helps having a system that allows maintaining continuous integration.
• Audit and logs: This is natural and simple in Webmethods, you can flag any service to be audited in their log database (on success and/or errors, when the service starts, exits, including parameters or not). You don’t need to have any extra coding for that. You can then use those logs to run your reports in SQLServer.
• Small features that help speeding up development, just as an example: commenting steps in an integration process is fairly simple in Webmethods while in other EAI solutions is a nightmare or impossible.

We used webmethods in an EAI project to integrate transactions from a bespoken HR Portal (e.g bank details change, new hire, salary increase, etc...) to update two different customer ERP systems in the back-end (SAP HR and PeopleSoft) thus providing self service capabilities to end users and reducing the need for manual data entry by agents (prone to errors and systems not being synchronized)

At least in SAG Webmethods 8 there was no Data Value Repository tool that would allow to map values/codes from source (in our case HR portal) and transform that into target ERP codes (SAP and PeopleSoft)

We therefore had to create our own solution and make calls at runtime to that repository (we called it Value List Repository or VLR for short) to resolve correct values in target.

The tool supports gRPC. It is the best product in the market.

The tool has its own proprietary language. It does not use Java or C#. The learning curve is a little steep at first. Once we get familiar with it, we might like to use it. The product must provide AI features to auto-generate logic based on our request.

I have been working with the product for more than 20 years.

The solution is scalable.

The technical support is good.

The product is easy to implement. We help our customers to implement the solution.

People who want to use the product must request a trial. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

webMethods Integration Server is an easy-to-use solution and does not require a lot of coding.

I have been using webMethods Integration Server for approximately three and a half years.

The stability of the webMethods Integration Server is good.

I rate the scalability of webMethods Integration Server a nine out of ten.

The technical support is very good. We were using the peer services and they were helpful at supporting every aspect of webMethods Integration Server and with ARIS.

Most of my clients would like the price of the solution to be reduced.

We would advise others to at least give webMethods Integration Server a try. Based on the solution's usability and ease of use it is very good. You don't have to do a lot of coding, it is close to an out-of-the-box functioning solution. It makes life easier.

I rate webMethods Integration Server a nine out of ten.

We use webMethods for integrating our applications.

The best part of webMethods is the out-of-box features that it provides to users, which ultimately saves on effort put into development.

All of the components are very independent but are tied together to give the business value.

The EDI is very eye-catching.

We have been having some non-technical, functional issues, which is why we're exploring other products.

The price should be reduced to make it more affordable.

I have been using webMethods for between 10 and 12 years.

The pricing and licensing costs for webMethods are very high, which is the only reason that we might switch to another product.

As we use webmethods, we continue to look for and research other products that are in the market. We have not decided if we are moving away from it yet, and there is no specific timeframe for making that decision, but we will continue to research alternatives.

Overall, it's a great product.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case is for communication between different systems and automation of business processes.

It has enabled us to integrate some systems which needed a form of translation.

The most valuable components of the solution are API management and EDI.

The Flow language mapping tool could be a little easier to use. The interface needs improvement.

The technical support served its purpose. We do not need to use it much.

We used a different solution and we switched because it was a product that was being phased out.

We considered other solutions along with webMethods Integration Server, including BizTalk and Tibco. There were other solutions but they were outside our planned budget.

I would rate this product as an 8 or a 9 out of ten.