What is our primary use case?
There are many use cases for webMethods ActiveTransfer, but the main focus for us is transferring files internally between applications or externally between partners. From a technical point of view, it can be seen a tool for file transfer for A2A (application-to-application), and from a market model point of view, it's also a B2B (business-to-business) tool. In terms of extras, it includes an engine for translation, which comes as an add-on, so that customers can translate files as they send or receive them from external partners. We could, of course, also create a custom interface in order to allow physical users to perform file transfer, but this is not a common use case.
Using webMethods ActiveTransfer, we can create rules for automatic application-to-application file transfers, and one of our customers in Italy is even using it for both file transfers and as an ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) as part of their supply chain infrastructure where there is a very high volume of messages being exchanged (thousands and thousands of messages per day).
If the customer's infrastructure is complex, with high-availability clusters and so on, then we often have to implement not only the basic use case, but also consider other business cases as well, such as in our Italian customer's situation where ActiveTransfer must additionally communicate with their order management orchestrator and other parts of their infrastructure.
There are offerings for deployment on cloud or hybrid as well, but most of the customers who have around 1,000 employees prefer the solution to be situated on-premises.
What is most valuable?
The core product can be used not only for automatic file transfers between applications, but also as an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Internally, it's easy to exchange messages between applications because they have decent integrations of message protocols whether you're using a REST API or MQ. Thus, its core functionality is highly compatible with different methods of exchanging messages between applications.
On the whole, it's a very good product being all at once easy to use, easy enough to install, and easy to deploy new workflows and so on.
What needs improvement?
I have noticed that webMethods ActiveTransfer has had problems when handling large files. For example, when we receive (and perform operations on) files that are larger than about 16 MB, the software starts losing performance. This is why, for most customers who have to deal with big files, I suggest that they use a product other than ActiveTransfer. I would like to note that this problem mainly concerns large files that undergo extra operations, such assigning, unassigning, or file translation. When these operations take place on large files, ActiveTransfer will use up a lot of resources.
Within the product itself, I also believe that there is room for improvement in terms of optimization when it comes to general performance. I suspect that the issues underlying poor optimization are because it is all developed in Java. That is, all the objects and functions that are used need to be better organized, especially when it comes to big files but also overall.
webMethods ActiveTransfer was born as an ESB to handle messages, and these messages were typically very short, i.e. small in size. A message is data that you have to send to an application, where it must be received in real-time and possibly processed or acknowledged elsewhere in the system as well. So, because it was initially designed for small messages, it struggles with performance when presented with very large files. All this to say, I suggest that they have an engineer reevaluate the architecture of the product in order to consider cases where large files are sent, and not only small ones.
As for new features, compared to other products in the market, I think Software AG should be more up to date when it comes to extra protocol support, especially those protocols that other solutions have included in their products by default. Whenever we need to add an unsupported protocol, we have to go through the effort of custom development in order to work with it.
Also, all the banks are obligated to migrate to the new standards, and big companies are all handling translations and operating their libraries with the new protocol formats. But webMethods ActiveTransfer doesn't seem to be keeping up with this evolution. Thus, they should aim to be more compliant in future, along the lines of their competitors such as IBM and Primeur.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with webMethods ActiveTransfer for four years. In the beginning I was working directly with the product, handling technical aspects, and now I am in more of a managerial role, managing teams in the implementation of new projects.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
For the most part, it's very stable and I would give it 4/5 stars.
The stability issues only arise in more extreme cases, such as when the file sizes are too large for the infrastructure to handle, or when the infrastructure is not well designed. And sometimes the problems are simply due to the fact that there isn't adequate performance on the other machine. In my books, the processing time for a 20 MB file should be measured in milliseconds or seconds, not minutes.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scalable, but my rating would only be 3/5 stars for this aspect. In general, the scaling is easy to implement when it comes to adding more resources to a machine, but when adding new nodes and so on, it's definitely not as easy as its competitors. There's a lot of manual activities that must be done, and it's not just a simple matter of running some scripts to start a cluster with new nodes.
This is, of course, the on-premises version I am talking about. I have not yet worked on the hybrid solution, though from what Software AG has sent me, it seems a lot easier because it deals with containers rather than nodes.
How are customer service and support?
We don't have any major issues with their support, but more often than not they take a very long time to answer. Because I work frequently with the sales team and other highly technical staff on their side, I eventually manage to solve most of the issues we come across by talking with them instead of support.
So most of the time, we do have our problems solved, but typically not with the speed and precision that we need.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
In terms of initial setup, It's easy enough and I would rate the process 4/5 stars.
How many engineers and other staff we need for deployment is always based on customer requirements, of course. For a simple business case comprising a non-complicated infrastructure with only a standard load node for production and a standard load node for staging, webMethods ActiveTransfer can be installed and set up by just one engineer within three or four days.
If the infrastructure is more complex, with high-availability clusters and multiple business cases to be implemented, then the deployment can extend over two or three weeks under the care of a senior staff member.
From a service point of view, the staff needed for deployment, maintenance, and support also depends on the SLA with the customer. For example, one of our customers in Italy uses webMethods ActiveTransfer not only as a file transfer system, but also as an ESB that is integrated with their supply chain infrastructure. In this case, keeping ActiveTransfer up and running is critical and we must provide extended support with two people from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and then another two people from 4:00 PM to midnight.
What was our ROI?
The ROI differs for each customer. As an integrator in Turkey, we see that if the customer is going to use webMethods ActiveTransfer to integrate multiple different business cases, the ROI is quite good, and it can be a positive ROI in only a matter of months.
In other cases, if the customer purchases a large amount of infrastructure in order to implement multiple workflows, but for internal reasons they have to move slowly, then over time the ROI is much greater.
However, it's very difficult to give an estimate on ROI because it depends so much on each individual customer. It's a good, complete product, but it's not cheap. In fact, it's among the top three or four most expensive platforms on the market and for this reason it's not always ease to achieve a very high ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing depends on the type of customer, so I would refrain from talking about it in an absolute kind of way. Overall, it's somewhat expensive, and depending on customer requirements, there are different types of licensing that can be useful, or not so useful.
Their licensing options are a mix with some variety between them. Normally, the on-premises license is a perpetual license, where the customer purchases the licensing once and then in following years only has to pay for the support. However, they have also included other licensing structures in which you can choose your licenses according to the number of users or the specifications of the machine that it will be running.
Sometimes we don't have a very clear idea what the licensing will entail at first, because it can be very customizable. On one hand, this can be a good thing, because it can be tailored to a specific customer's needs. But on the other hand it can also be an issue when some customer asks, "What's the cost?" and we can't yet give them an accurate answer. In times like these, we can only tell them that it depends on your use case, and this isn't always the answer they want to hear.
What other advice do I have?
During my career I have worked with a lot of different products and I generally only go on to work with those products that I feel are worth being called good products. We also work with IBM and Primeur, and I can say that webMethods ActiveTransfer is a very good product. It's easy to use, and easy enough to install and deploy new workflows.
At the same time, since we have been having numerous issues with their support in terms of response times, I must say that if their support doesn't improve, we may eventually have to stop promoting this product to our customers.
I would rate webMethods ActiveTransfer an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
