IBM B2B Integrator Reviews

One of the most valuable features in IBM Sterling B2B Integrator would be the ease of self-service. We previously had a competitor for our file transfer and IBM Sterling B2B Integrator is what we have migrated to. It makes transparency into the transactions a lot better than our old legacy product. There are a lot more self-service options, especially with File Gateway. It has a lot more capabilities in terms of scalability and adaptability, so that we can use IBM Sterling B2B Integrator to scale to our growth, whereas the old platform we could not.

The breadth of APIs is something that I would like to see improved. At a recent IBM conference, I was going to a hands-on lab about the APIs and the Sterling solution, and I would love to see them expand upon that. We use IBM Control Center and they have a lot of work to do with their APIs. You can't make a single call to get all the information you want on a file status, on a transfer status. I would love to see them improve both in their IBM Sterling B2B Integrator, File Gateway, and control center, the use of APIs and I guess the options that you can have with them.

Out of 10, I would give stability a seven, only because I think in IBM Sterling B2B Integrator, there are still some bugs. We have a secure proxy, perimeter servers, IBM Sterling B2B Integrator and the File Gateway. When you do full restarts for refreshes or maintenance, when you bring them back up, you can't do an SI restart cleanly without also doing the proxy. You have to do everything as kind of a package restart. Otherwise, you'll get some crazy things happening with the adapters. Now, that is on a 5.2.5 version. We're going to go to 5.2.6 in a couple months here. We’re hoping they eliminate that and we have our IBM lab advocate that works closely with us to address our concerns.

Scalability is great. We future planned when we implemented the Sterling solution so that we could match 10-year growth and right now, we're underutilizing the environment. We've done 1x, 2x, 3x, even 5x testing on it. It still holds up to a 5x test, whereas our legacy platform couldn't even match the 1x that we currently are running.

We use technical support all the time. I'd probably rate them probably another seven out of 10. They always help us with our solutions in a quick manner. However, probably more than half the time, it's “Just wait for the next fix pack to have your thing resolved.” We open up PMRs with IBM all the time. I'd say we have several hundred by now.

The back and forth with, “Can you send me this log?”, “Now, can you send me that log?”, and “Can you send me this log?”; it would be helpful if, when you open up a PMR based upon certain applications, they tell you which kind of logs that they look for. That way, when you open up your PMR, you can attach those logs based on that product, like IBM Sterling B2B Integrator. And that way, you're not doing this back and forth for a week straight of, “OK, now I need this log and that log, and this log and that log.”

We knew we needed to invest in this solution because our previous legacy platform was fully customized. We were out of date on the server, on the version of the product, and roughly 80% was custom scripted with Perl scripts that we had to support in-house. We needed a solution that we actually could go to support for, if there were any issues, and not rely on a couple of people who wrote a bunch of Perl scripts.

I was not involved in the initial setup. However, I have been involved in all the server refreshes, so I've had to actually set up the environment from scratch on new servers. I find it to be pretty straightforward for 5.2.5.

For 5.2.6, we've done some test runs and it's a little bit harder with installation manager now. I never had to do installation manager of 5.2.5 but I think once you get that down, it's not too bad. And once you get installation manager installed, it appears that upgrading after that is a lot easier than before.

Before choosing this product, I think my company evaluated a total of five vendors. Out of the five, IBM beat out the other four. Since I wasn't there for the initial setup, I'm not sure of the other vendors.

For our company, the biggest thing when we’re selecting a vendor would be partnership in the service level contracts. If there is a previous relationship, that's even better. We're very closely integrated with IBM, so there is a lot of partnership and service level credits and contracts already in place. That was probably one of the biggest drivers of why we went with an IBM solution.

We actually have several meetings with other colleagues at other companies who want to implement this solution and we tell them some of our pain points, some of our success stories and overall that it's the right move if the company can afford it, because I know that IBM is not always the cheapest. But it is worth the investment to have a product that is the best in the market, and overall more stable and more scalable.

My rating reflects that there's a lot more work to do. Still, compared to other products, our legacy platform, it still outperforms them.

The most valuable feature is its capability to integrate with multiple protocols.

It provides a single point of visibility for all the transfers that we conduct within our bank. It has great audit-lock capabilities for anything that I have to go back and look at as well. On top of it all, it's also secure.

One of the top most features that is missing is the integration with the ASPERA FASP protocol for us, which is still missing on the B2B Integrator. IBM bought ASPERA a few years back but haven't been able to provide this protocol integration with their B2B file gateway. However, the same is now integrated with ‎Connect:Direct for a standalone solution but not on the Connect:Direct adapter within Sterling Integrator.

So, that's the primary one. There are just a few missing aspects in terms of the integration; otherwise, the product is good. It's pretty scalable. It's pretty easy to use once the install is done. It has a user interface, which is great. So, everything except a few challenges on the new integration. That's it.

It's pretty stable. We generally don't apply the latest patches and the latest versions as they come out. We give it some time before we go ahead and install it, because the general IBM tendency has been to follow a version with a couple of hot fixes on top of it. In the past, we have had issues when we did upgrade to the latest version.

It's pretty scalable; I don't doubt that. The only thing I feel right now is that it has slowed down in terms of integrating with other new technologies. For example, Aspira hasn't yet been integrated with this B2B solution, which in my opinion is the need of the hour.

The technical support is always great.

I wasn't using any other better solution than the one that I'm using right now. So, I think IBM B2B Sterling Integrator and Sterling File Gateway is the leader and I don't see any other product as compelling as that one.

The setup was not too complex; I've been doing it for a while. Of course, you need some advanced knowledge of B2B integration and study integrator tools, in order to go ahead and be able to install it correctly.

It's great. Build your team, because you would need constant administration of this gateway. Even though when I say it's not complex, you need a dedicated admin to take care of your investment, i.e., if it's going to be a big gateway for your organization. But apart from that, once you have it, it is automated on its own.

The IBM Sterling B2B Integrator is a very good B2B tool which has required services and adapter to handle B2B requests. Having this variety of adapters help us handle all most all requests from our customers.

We are able to handle the request which were not able to handle before with Trusted Link translator. We are able to built custom processes, even edit out of the box business process to make them work how we wanted to track information for our end to end visibility.

There is no end-to-end built in visibility at least until we moved to IBM managed services.

Able to test processes in debug mode.

Able to test processes from local machines.

12 years

The product is very stable. We use version 5.2. We used 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 as well. It was previously Gentran Integration Suite and then it was branded as IBM Sterling B2B Integrator. Version 5.2 is stable.

The scalability is good. We had the right hardware as per recommendations.

There are three types of issues. Simple, medium and complex. For simple issues we were able to find some answers from Knowledge base. For medium issues we used to raise tickets with L1 where some of them are solved or we get L2 involved. For complex issues we hit L3 and it many end up as product enhancement request sometimes. Critical & Complex issues used to take some time to get on to same page, recreate it at IBM environment and come with a resolution. I would give them a rating of 8 out of 10.

We didn’t use technical support for the solution because we had a good team coming from AS/400 background. We were mainly focusing on issues when something didn't work. We got help for the following:

• Hardware requirements.
• Installations.
• Patch installations.
• Some of the key functionality, in terms of certain adapters and how they work.
• Guidance when we were trying to understand how an adapter works in detail.

Yes, we had Trusted link translator V2 and V6 which are no match with respective to functionality we get from IBM sterling integrator so that was the reason we switched.

This is a good tool for a person who already understands the B2B concepts. You will have to build the base framework first and then start onboarding customer interfaces otherwise you will end up with too many customer interface to handle down the line.

I like the ability to:

• Customize
• Manage partners
• Do all the file transfers that it handles
• Write code
• Manipulate the files: Zip and unzip files, PGP the files, or any type of file manipulation

It allowed us to set up partners and communicate with our different vendors, in regards to file transfers for the bank.

Ciphers: Security around ciphers and handling the changes within that industry could use improvement. They could make it easier to enable and remove ciphers that you don't want to use or that have been deprecated, etc.

We have had no issues with stability.

We have had no issues with scalability.

The support I've had for the application is really good. They are very professional, courteous, helpful, and they get back in contact with you in a timely fashion.

I started with a company that was using Connect Enterprise, and it was just too open to scripting.

People weren't writing the same type of scripts, and it wasn't the type of application where someone could come in and pick it up. It was good that they got Sterling Integrator.

I was not involved in the initial setup at my particular job, but I was in the past. The complexity depends on how you want to use the app. You can definitely use it as is, out-of-the-box. However, most customers are going to want to customize it to their business.

They actually looked at Axway, and I think about five or six other vendors. We ended up going with Sterling Integrator because of its ease of deployment. You could jump in anywhere and deploy it on the server.

I would give them basic information about how to set it up to make sure that it runs efficiently. I would give them performance advice, as well as configuration advice on how to deal with partners, bringing files in and sending files out.

We use B2B Integrator to collect files locally and send them to external business partners, like the national banks. For example, the company regularly sends financial reports to the national central bank. In short, it's for data exchange between companies. I previously worked for an automotive company, and we used B2B Integrator to exchange data with the parts supplier.

B2B Integrator is multi-platform, so it can be integrated with Windows, Unix, or whatever, and it can work with almost all programming languages. It can also transfer a lot of data in a short time. For instance, a system I recently implemented exchanges about 20 million files a day.

The user interface is outdated. B2B Integrator was developed in the United States in the nineties, and the graphical user interface hasn't improved since. It's tough because you have to program the software in XML. Nowadays, other methods are easier to work with. Programming the system is challenging. However, it's not a shortcoming for me. I think it would help if they had more documentation, too. 

I've been using B2B Integrator for about 10 years.

I would rate B2B Integrator eight out of 10 for performance but 10 out of 10 for stability. 

B2B Integrator is highly scalable. I give it a 10 out of 10 for scalability. 

IBM support is another one of B2B Integrator's advantages. Support is crucial for large enterprises, and this is a product primarily used in big corporations.

I have some experience with a similar product called Axway File Gateway, but not too much. Axway is easier to set up. Apart from that, I'd say that they're more or less the same program. Nonetheless, I would still go for IBM because the aftersales service of Axway needs some improvement.

The initial deployment is very complex. I would rate it 10 out of 10 for complexity. The installation itself is pretty straightforward, it's hard to configure the business flows, and it takes a lot of time. 

The programming interface is old. You need to program everything in XML and XSLT, and that's an old-fashioned way to do things. It took me an entire year to fully deploy the system in a corporation of 60,000 employees. We're talking about 20,000 files a day. We have a team for deployment and maintenance, but the product doesn't require much maintenance — only regular updates. For updates and releases, the product manages itself. 

B2B Integrator is expensive, but it's worth it. I rate the price 10 out of 10 for the most expensive, but it's also the best product for what it does. The only additional cost is the support contract.  

I rate B2B Integrator nine out of 10. If you are implementing B2B Integrator, you should have good programmers and a solid system administration team. It's also better to outsource the system setup.

The IBM B2B Integrator is going to be a middleware point of contact for us. It's helping us in terms of file transfer communication. There is a file gateway, which is built on B2B Integrator, which allows us to build out some custom protocols based on our requirements. That would be any of the use cases; FTP, SFTP, S2 and all kinds of communications.

I believe that the translation part is the best thing, with which we can do a lot of custom business processes. It will help us to build a translation specific to our partner, specific to our port, or specific to EDA testings. It's going to help us a lot in translations, especially in terms of converting the standard EDA documents to the internal file formats or vice versa (back to EDA).

I started working as a developer and now, I'm a solution architect. All this while, I have been using it, for over 13 years; this is a great tool.

There's a lot still to be improved in the component, as there are many challenges in terms of B2B tools. One of the challenges was on the Sterling side, since I love to have translations with XLS. So, if you have a Word document and an XLS file, then there is no conversion right now, which is a standard way of doing it. It's not happening anywhere in the world, i.e., anywhere in the B2B tools, so I'd love to have that kind feature soon.

I've been working on this tool for the past 13 years.

The stability of the solution totally depends upon a company and as to what they are looking at the moment. Right now, we are looking at the Sterling B2B solution, so it is good.

The scalability is also good.

The technical support is good. We just have to be conscious on the escalation part, i.e., if it's a Level 1 or Level 2. Otherwise, they are good and prompt.

Previously, we were using Mercator, which is now acquired by IBM and now known as IBM WTX/IBM ITX.

We did a market research and then found out that this is going to be the less expensive solution, in terms of the cost, as compared to the other products.

When selecting a vendor, we just want the vendor to be flexible and who can go with a lot of iterations; and the cost; and then who has the technical capabilities; and then who is very strong in communicating things; and being fair in terms of the cost. We have a lot of issues in terms of dealing with the vendors, since their billing prices are very high.

We chose IBM because it's a great tool and is going to support us to do a lot of internal completion of the translation piece. Also, cost-wise, it's less compared to the other products.

Right now, we have Shree Consulting and we have Lightwell our short list; that's all I know.

It can do everything. Now that IBM is acquiring the ITX/ WTX, it's going to be a next generation tool. As long you add some capabilities to it, it's going to be good solution.

You should go for it!

The product is easily transportable - it'll go to any platform. We can make any business, an electronic commerce business in no time at all. We have enough experience with the software itself so that a company can go out and buy the IBM product, hook that company up with us, we can put the software they need on it, and they can be in business in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

Well perhaps an easier way of getting questions answered would be useful. The emailing of questions into IBM's site for Sterling support works but it would be nicer if we had more. The knowledge base does leave a little bit to be expected.

I don't see that it needs anything more. It does everything just the way it is right now. There is a lot of years of development back from when Sterling was an independent company, before IBM took over. They formed a niche and we have it.

The stability is unbelievably good and we have a Sterling hotline for all of our Sterling questions. They're very responsive. IBM is a little bit of a cumbersome thing in front of it, but we know how to get out around that and it works out very well. What happens is a customer that spends $1,000,000 in their budget, they get support all the time as they need it and the company itself doesn't have to be technically savvy. All they need to do is interface with our company, Sea Level Solutions, and they have everything they need to keep business running.

It can go any size. It's a little bit expensive for a mom-and-pop shop, but again, IBM will be having much smaller packages, which will be more affordable.

I am technical support. I am like first and second line, if I don't know it I can usually get on a phone call to someone who can get me answers within a reasonable length of time, 6-12 hours.

I supported another product from TSI Software back in the 90s when Gentran
Basic was being developed.

I rated it a nine because there is always a little bit of room for improvement.

I would advise colleagues to find a way to be able to utilize this product because it would give them everything they need and then some because it's just it's a very versatile product.

The key features that you would expect from the solution are:

• The communications and the protocols: The communication is very critical for any B2B product, especially for EDI commerce activities.
• The protocols and standards that are supported.
• The transformation leg, which is the transaction confirmation.
• The business process orchestration around the inbound and outbound transactions.

In this particular space, Sterling B2B Integrator has been the number one solution in the marketplace.

When you go across the country, you see this solution the majority of the time. You don't even have to think about it. That's how dominant that product is. This is what used to be called Gentran. It started off on the mainframe and now it is running on almost all the platforms.

Of course, there are a couple of competitors in the marketplace. However, when it comes to stability, performance, standards, and the breadth of the support in various countries, this is an awesome solution.

The benefits are in terms of the two most critical sides of the business: the buy side and the sell side.

This has become the de facto standard. It helps in the supply chain optimization problems. There are still a lot of customers who still are using paper-based transaction processing. Some still are using faxes, but this is the way to go.

Even though API management has become so popular, corporate businesses are still going on API.

Visibility is really a cool thing. There's a built-in Sterling Control Center, which provides great visibility for all the different things.

It's not only about visibility. It's about acting on an alert or acting on a critical situation that might be failing.

For example, if I have some SLAs and if I'm not going to meet them, I want to be alerted ahead of time, not after the fact. That's one of the good capabilities that this product has.

There have been a couple of issues that we have raised in terms of scalability and high availability. IBM has responded back with the next-generation product and new features like the global mailbox and a couple of other things, which are pretty cool. We would like to use the same product without having to go for the add-on products.

This product has been in the marketplace for such a long time. The current version, 5.24, has been very stable for the last year and a half. The 5.26 version is a very simple upgrade.

It is pretty scalable and stable. Scalability and stability are both perfect, spot on.

There are times when we call IBM support, especially for the new releases. They are pretty good at responding. It's all about how you interact with them, and how quickly can you provide all the details about your product, your version, and the log files.

A lot of times, customers have issues.

Customer: "I have a problem."

Technical support: "What is the problem?"

Customer: "This is my problem. My translation is not happening."

Technical support: "What version?"

There is this constant dialogue that is going back and forth. If the customer can provide all that information in one shot as technical support is logging the ticket, then that will speed it up and you can get a resolution quickly.

The other challenge is that customers say that the problem is mission-critical, but they don't have the person available to address the issue. The customer has to make sure that there is somebody to receive and handle the call so they can get a resolution within 24 hours.

The previous solutions had challenges. A lot of the customers came to us saying they wanted a new standard and what they had was failing. They said, "We need a better platform and we need something which has lots of enterprise trust."

We evaluated Microsoft and OpenText. Sterling is the best.

When selecting a vendor, I look for company stability, the product, and the depth of experience. Those are the things that really matter.