IBM Integration Bus Reviews

Our organization is a bank, so we use IBM Integration Bus for integration with core services and test applications.

IBM Integration Bus facilitates communication between parties and legacy systems. For example, the banking industry has a lot of legacy systems, so IBM Integration allows for communication between the legacy systems and new ones and allows us to develop solutions that can respond to the new ones.

We currently use version 10 of IBM Integration Bus. The most beneficial feature is the integration we have with legacy services. We can do the integration to expose other technology to stop, rest and manipulate the output of many legacy services.

We would like to separate the services into different containers, and we don't have this ability right now on IBM Integration Bus. We are currently doing this as an organization, and IBM is setting up the OpenShift.

The version of the technology and current knowledge is a bit outdated. There is also no DevOps, and the process of deploying that is the downside. Regarding additional features, we would like better integration with external solutions like Apache Kafka.

We have been using this solution for six years.

It is a stable solution. The downside is that sometimes it is easier to use another post, like a language outside of IBM Integration Bus, but overall it's a good solution.

It is not scalable.

We do not communicate much with IBM, only for initial setup and completing bootstrapping technology. However, we have IBM partners that work with us. I rate the technical support a four out of ten because they are sometimes a bit selective with the partners they pay attention to.

Our company has been using IBM technology from the beginning.

The initial setup is difficult to configure and set up the first time. I rate the setup a four out of ten.

I rate this solution a seven out of ten.

IBM Integration Bus is mainly used to integrate banking systems.

IBM Integration Bus' most valuable features are its performance, fast and easy development, and easy support.

Some of the runtime properties need to be improved because if you want to load certificates as sales security, you have to restart the server. There are also some bugs with file transfer protocol.

I've been using IBM Integration Bus for three to four years.

IBM Integration Bus is very stable.

The initial setup was straightforward, and IBM has a great knowledge base to help. I would rate the setup experience as four out of five.

IBM Integration Bus is expensive.

I would give IBM Integration Bus a rating of nine out of ten.

My only client at the moment is a national government bank. Currently, the IBM Integration Bus is the integration platform for all the various departments of the bank. There are probably six or seven major departments across the bank that subscribe to or use the integration services like MessageQ, Broker, or the platform's orchestration capabilities. And we have a team of about 15 people managing it.  

Integration Bus has also been put in place to lay the foundation for hybrid integration into the two specific systems on the cloud. We are still deploying it, so we haven't gotten into any actual use cases yet. In the past, it was relatively easy for the team, but I don't think they've ever leveraged the suite's full capabilities. It hasn't been easy in some instances because the reserve bank is unique. It's not the same as other financial institutions, but we've had challenges on the platform before.

IBM Integration Bus could be easier to manage, but this is true of all vendors. It doesn't always do what it says on the box. In terms of new features, we have a roadmap, and it's looking quite comprehensive. However, we may not necessarily need everything they're putting out. I know that's probably driven by global demand. 

I've been dealing with IBM Integration Bus off and on for the last 15 years.

I think IBM support could be faster. It took us a while to resolve our issues because they don't necessarily have the technical resources in our country. We had to source the resources internationally, so it took a while to get that done. But once we got what we needed, IBM resolved it relatively quickly.

Setting up IBM Integration Bus wasn't simple, but we've got a unique environment. We're probably about two or three months behind on our implementation because of unforeseen interoperability problems between Red Hat OpenShift and VMware. We've got a team of about 15 overseeing the deployment, including engineers, developers, and the support staff for the platform.

I think our enterprise license agreement is included with a bundle of products.

I would give IBM Integration Bus a solid eight out of 10. I recommend it for large enterprises but only for specific use cases. You need to have a relatively mature integration practice in your organization to leverage its capabilities fully. So I wouldn't recommend it to startups or somebody new. I'd instead go open source or something relatively easy.

We are, of course, using the latest version. 

We use the solution for bridging the gap between different legacy systems. Re-usability is another function of the solution. So too, we use it to limit the challenges faced between different systems that are unable to communicate at the same speed and rate, or that need to talk among different systems, to utilize a channel which is bigger and better, to make use of the back-end or in respect of some other point-to-point integration need. As such, our uses for the solution vary depending on the customer. An example would be that which relates to a banking industry, for which there would be a core banking system, the need for card systems, ATM transactions, et cetera. Middleware plays a key role in the usability of these services. The goal is to avoid point-to-point integration between the channels and the back-end systems making use of the solution.

We have come across many customer complaints about the excessive time it takes for IBM to provide customer and technical support. 

Our organization has been using IBM Integration Bus in various branches, spanning a host of  locations, since before I joined 14 years ago. It has been doing so for the past 15 to 20 years. 

I consider the solution to be one of the most stable in the market, in comparison with others such as Oracle and this assessment I maintain on an ongoing basis. I have received much feedback from customers about the solution's stability. 

The solution is scalable, but we have yet to receive the full review and feedback. This is because we have been informed that the latest systems have only recently been produced. So, I cannot give you complete feedback about the scalability of the solution at the moment. The latest deployment is on a container platform.

We have received many complaints from customers that the customer and technical support should be faster. 

I believe the initial setup was easy, but this is a question best taken up with the technical team. 

I use the traditional licensing model, which I believe to not be on a monthly basis, as the solution is not cloud-based. 

I don't mind the pricing.

90 percent of days the solution is on the client enrollment. We are hoping to encounter good business cases, involving integration planning, as the trend is for people to gradually transition to the cloud, the government initiative being that involving Azure. 

As we are a service provider, I cannot give you exact figures about the number of users in our organization who are making use of the solution. As mentioned, this depends on the customer, with each one involving its own user type. 

I would, of course, recommend this solution to others.

I rate IBM Integration Bus as an eight out of ten. 

The solution is primarily a middleware. It's security-enabled and we are using the same credentials for development. We plan on making a backend to handle growing requests.

The solution is similar to Adobe X Pro. We can intersect with any of those items.

The scalability is very good.

The integration with other tools is excellent. It integrates well with batch issues.

Overall, the solution works very well.

IBM could improve its connectivity. 

The solution needs to be better integrated with the cloud version of the solution.

The solution is constrained by the environment - whether it's on-premises or the cloud. The cloud seems to be more adaptable.

I've been using the solution since 2014.

The solution is very stable. We haven't found any bugs or glitches. There haven't been crashes. It's quite reliable.

We have more than 20 people that use the solution. We use it on a daily basis. The scalability is good and is simple to expand as necessary.

I didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is simple enough. Right now, in its entirety, the download is very simple. It's actually a one-click solution.

Deployment takes very little time. It depends mostly on the load and what we are pushing out. However, it usually takes a matter of seconds.

We have 14 people in general on our team using the solution, and they are all able to perform maintenance.

I handled the implementation myself.

I don't have any information about licensing or costs. It's not something that I am in charge of.

We're just IBM customers. We're not partners and we don't have a relationship with the company.

In terms of on-premises vs cloud, I'd suggest users go to the cloud. It obviously depends on the market and the adoption rate.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

• WebSphere MQ Connectivity: MQInput node and MQOutput node
• Load Management: We can configure more than one instance of an application
• High Availability (multi-instance broker)
• ESQ
• Microsoft .NET Support/.NETCompute node: This has helped us to reuse our existing .NET code
• Web Standards connectivity: HTTPInput node and HTTPReply node

• We have improved our productivity
• We can easily and quickly create and integrate applications
• With the help of built-in nodes, we are no longer required to create our own code for HTTPInput node, HTTPReply node, FileInput node, FileOutPut node, etc.
• Built-in parsers are helping us in rapid development
• Development is mostly just drag and drop, e.g., MQ integration
• Deployment is much easier now

• ESQL: ESQL requires some more functions e.g., encryption/decryption/hashing. Currently, we have to use .NET or Java.
• WebSphere MQ: This needs a web-based remote monitoring and administration panel.
• Oracle Wire Protocol ODBC Driver: This needs to be compatible with different versions of Oracle, at least Oracle 10G and above versions.
• A centralized log monitoring console is required where we can monitor all traffic (in/out) of the broker node.

We have been using this product for four years.

Stability is mostly fine. However, integration with Oracle is not good. Sometimes the Oracle Wire Protocol ODBC driver creates problems, especially if database links are used in SPs. We have to restart our service to resume connectivity.

Scalability is mostly fine. However, in the IBM integration toolkit, there should be something like “Solution Folder in Visual Studio” to keep related applications and integration services together.

Previously, we were using Microsoft Biztalk Server for middleware and integrations. Because of the obsolete version of Biztalk and the end of the support agreement with Microsoft, we decided to switch to some new technologies with advanced features where we can implement SOA services. Hence we decided to go with IIB.

It was a challenging task because we were moving to a new technology, especially from Microsoft to IBM. With the help of IBM technical sales staff, online help, and some trial and error, we now have a good implementation of IIB.

As a member of the technical implementation team, I’m not involved in pricing and licensing considerations.

While evaluating IIB, we also evaluated Oracle Service Bus (OSB) and the latest version of Microsoft Biztalk Server.

I would recommend implementing this with proper planning such as:

• Create and implement IIB in a High Availability (HA) environment
• Create all required integration servers (execution groups) and assign them with HTTP/HTTPS ports explicitly
• Configure SSL from the start
• Use proper naming conventions for integration nodes, integration servers, and queue managers.

The IBM Integration Bus is a very strong, very easy-to-use product. 

We prefer it due to the fact that we can get support from IBM when we need to, as opposed to using open-source tools that do not have support.

Sometimes companies have systems from IBM, Oracle, HP, et cetera. IIB is a good candidate to enable all heterogeneous systems to exchange data smoothly without any effort.

The product is a user-customized tool so that you can adjust it to your specific needs pretty well with little trouble. 

The initial setup is easy.

While it is very user-friendly there is another open-source tool in the market you can use instead of it.

The integration could be better, especially when it comes to integrating with older systems or solutions. 

The solution needs to simplify its documentation, such as the user and operation manuals, to make them even easier to understand. 

I've been working with IBM products for 30 years or so. This particular IBM solution, however, I've dealt with for the last four years. That said, I have a lot of IBM experience. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The product is upgradable. There is the potential to scale. 

In the Middle East, the customers are looking for a company that can take over anything and handles everything if there are issues. The support is very reliable and helpful. They are responsive and knowledgeable and we are very happy with their capabilities. 

I'm also familiar with Apache Kafka. Kafka is much faster. The performance is much greater than IIB. IIB is not as fast as Kafka.

For myself, the initial setup was very easy due to the fact that I have worked with IBM for many years and I'm quite comfortable with the brand.

That said, the IBM environment is fairly complicated. It is much easier than other options, even so, and technical support is quite helpful if users run into issues. 

I am not a partner for IBM. That said, IBM has used me for consultation issues and training sources. I used to be a partner, maybe six years ago.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We are using the solution as an outer layer for all of our API calls we are making outside of our own devices. All APIs integrations are routing through the ESB only. We are using it for IIB server components and the DataPower, which is an API gateway. It is providing us with a security layer because all the outside calls do not have direct communication with our own server, this middle layer is called the ESB. 

The solution has helped my organization because any new integration coming to my backend system, we can easily implement it in a shorter time. This is because the middle layer takes care of all API language conversions or the code conversion, and also does the maintaining of the logs.

Having the solution come from IBM you know you are receiving a product of quality in components and in the services, it is very good.

I do not think there are any improvement areas because it depends on what exactly the use case for this ESB is. Some organizations are having a lot of integration and they will choose a regular ESB. While others will choose the security purpose route, making an extra layer. It depends from organization to organization, to determine how this solution can be improved from their specific use cases. Otherwise, I think that there are not any relevant improvement areas to give.

I used the solution in my last company for a long while.

The solution came to the market a long while ago, it has had time to mature. It is really stable and large organizations can rely on it. Smaller companies could too but it is too expensive.

It is a scalable solution. You can have any number of integration, it depends on the server and how much space you are providing to the IIB servers. We plan to have more than 50 wired integration by the end of the year.

The installation is not easy. You need experts who know how to install this IIB. The common technician will not have the knowledge to do it. You will need assistance installing the solution even though on IBM's website you can download the complete user manual explaining how to install the IIB servers. 

We used a third-party vendor, who help us install the solution and it was not easy. If you have most things in place at the site the whole installation process can take approximately three days. 

To do the complete deployment you will need at least one architecture that understands this IIB solution. It all depends on what kind of IP division architecture you have. Based on the project's scope, you then can define your team. There is no certain number of how many team members is required. It depends on your project, how large it is, and based on that you can decide how much manpower is required.

The solution requires a license and is very expensive here in India. Large organizations will be able to afford it but smaller companies will have a difficult time paying for the solution at the current price.

I am going to continue to use this solution, when you purchase this solution you have spent a lot of money, you have to continue to use it to make a return on investment.

I would recommend this solution if they have a large budget.

I rate IBM Integration Bus an eight out of ten.