IBM MQ Reviews

The most valuable feature is the ability to connect our different systems fairly seamlessly. Without it, I don't know how we would have connected our mainframe Intel-based systems and Power Systems together. It's the tool that we utilize to make it happen.

It's the transport tier that connects our systems. Without it, we would be very disconnected.

We're using it entirely for our transactional systems right now.

We're not really using MQ to better connect across cloud, mobile and devices, and the internet of things. I imagine that will be the tool that we will utilize that will help bring that next level in. Right now, we're not utilizing it.

Maybe the administration interface could be improved. Right now, it's very command-line driven. My guess is that if the GUI interface was a little bit better, with more of a singular interface across platforms, that would be helpful.

Like most of the IBM products, it's pretty stable. We haven't really had any real challenges. We run it on the mainframe as well as open systems and both are incredibly stable.

It is very scalable; we use it all the time.

I have not personally used technical support for MQ, but my team has. It has been very responsive.

I did not previously use a different solution.

I was involved in the initial set up at my organization from an infrastructure standpoint. We provide the infrastructure tier. On the open-system side, we helped with it and helped the implementation out on the mainframe.

The actual installation is straightforward. The configuration and the implementation of enabling MQ to talk and communicate between the systems can be complicated.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

From our experience with the functionality and the stability of the product, it's going to be difficult to find something that rivals it in the industry right now.

My rating reflects its functionality and its ability to allow our systems, our enterprise, to run the way it does right now. It's purely a function of MQ's ability to allow the systems to talk to each other.

Support and supportability are the most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor to work with. The ability to handle challenges quickly and responsively.

Our primary use case for pushing data as a queuing mechanism for all the applications to send out messages. We use it as a pipeline. We also use it to publish data and for the application to extract it all.

In terms of runtime, we just push data. We have reduced the various footprints of the database and for transmitting the data from one location to another. MQ is reliable and more structured and it's helped us a lot in pushing the data. The data can be pushed and it will be persistent. It helps us and the connectivity between the data as two separate applications and our middleware interactions are much faster and more reliable.

IBM MQ deals mainly with the queuing mechanism. It passes the data and it publishes it. These two abilities are the most valuable features. 

IBM MQ has a lot of room for improvement. It's an older solution but they are improving the product. It's wider and it's a heavy application so it supports clusters also. 

It is expensive. The cost is high. There should be more improvement in the new age of technologies. 

I have been using IBM MQ for ten years. 

The stability is good. 

The scalability is high.

Their support is very good. IBM MQ is around 20 years old. The technicians have a lot of expertise with it.

MQ is has a straightforward implementation. There is not much configuration required. It is more complicated for a cluster implementation and the active-passive implementation. You'll need more technical knowledge 

A regular deployment will take around five to 10 minutes. If it's for a cluster implementation, it will take at least 15 to 30 minutes.

We have an internal team that does the implementation. We asked IBM to do the deployment. 

If you use it for evaluation purposes, it's good but if you're using it for freeware, it's not so good. 

Multiple fault tolerance and partition tolerance are great. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

IBM MQ is used heavily in all of the companies I have worked for, mostly in the financial industry. It is easy to set up and has good instrumentation.

The product was already installed which is not surprising as it was first published around 1993.

To be able to programmatically send information stored in 'messages' and send them securely, as well as the ability to check their contents and statistics when things go wrong.

• Better testing by the supplier is needed
• Ability to send to a group of queues without the need to use pubsub and without the need to write one's own programmes.

WebSphere messaging, clustering and security are the most important and most valuable features.

Security is the most important thing right now. Nowadays, you can see people are hacking into systems to steal customer data. MQ has very good security features and it supports very good protocols.

The biggest advantage about us using messaging is that we can connect to most of the financial customers across the globe securely and data is always sent only once, asynchronously as well as synchronously.

We are moving toward the cloud. How can we migrate the existing customers to a private cloud? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Maybe it's already there. I need to know.

It is a very stable product. We have been using it for more than ten years. It is very stable.

It's pretty much scalable, but I'm looking to see if we can scale to cloud using the existing infrastructure. It’s like picking up buckets. It’s very lax.

We have used technical support. Not for the solution, but for problems or issues. I would say that they are okay. If you want me to rate between one to ten, I would rate them four.

We did not previously use a different solution. This is something that we started using and it has grown tremendously in eight or ten years. It is one of the most widely used messaging solutions, internally and for external customers.

I was involved in the initial setup. It is straightforward. Since I'm familiar with this tool and been working with it for 12 years, it was straightforward.

We did not evaluate any alternatives.

I think it all depends on the business need or the price. If the budget is strict, then they go with other solutions. They compromise on the business need. If they are OK with the budget, then they just go with it.

They keep on increasing the solutions such as for message synchronization. They have really improved it a lot, with major clustering and the high availability that it can do now. I'm still deep diving into the latest version right now. We have been using this solution for a really long time.

Basically, we are using the messaging part of the solution, collaborating with other technologies on the WebSphere platform. Once you do everything, then you don't really need to worry if the network is available or not. Once you are delivering the message, it's going to be sure delivery for you.

I must check this in depth. I can't really comment on areas with room for improvement, because they already introduced a lot already. I'm still new and need to explore what exactly the latest version has in it. So, only after that I can say what more we need exactly.

I have not had any issues but I'm looking for more collaboration with the Message Broker and DataPower. I feel that the MQ takes a longer time when DataPower is trying to connect to the MQ part, so I'm looking for that. But, I don't have a really good point to bring out right now.

The reason we have been using the solution is because we have it for a really long time, i.e., for more than a decade.

The product's stability is really good. I have recently heard that they're introducing a separate appliance for this. That's going to be a very good step for everyone.

I'm so positive about it's scalability. Other than Walmart, I am working with other companies and I work with the same solution. The scalability is going to be really good and I support it to it's extreme.

IBM technical support is always very great and we have a really good opportunity to talk with them, each and every time that we need support. They give us special attention. So, we're happy with the support provided.

I was involved in all the possibilities. In the past, I have carried out the implementation process from scratch. With my current employer, I have started supporting and building more for the already existing environment.

It's stable and they keep on just increasing the facilities they are providing in regards to clustering and the public supplied options. They're really doing good there.

IBM is doing really good and they're still growing. IBM should keep the work up in the same way and eventually they'll get there.

We have multiple offers out there from competitors, to beat out the open-sources and the competitors comparing with the license cause and the product-support cause. However, they aren't competitive enough and IBM is way above. In the end, you will get what you pay for.

It all depends on the budget. If you have the budget, then I always prefer IBM.
IBM is the more expensive solution out there, but it's worth it.

The product encourages the idea of asynchronous processing, which means that the sender and receiver are not required to be active and running at the same time. The message will be saved to the receiver queue until the system starts successfully and pulls it for processing. This is typically used in all internet banking functions that receive their data from different bank systems.

• Support for JMS 2.0, because we develop solutions compatible with Java EE7.
• Seamless integration with IBM WebSphere Application Server, which is the most stable application server I ever worked with.
• Installed and configured at Windows, AIX and IBM i mostly the same way and set of commands.

They need to add the ability to send full messages (header + payload) from the MQ Explorer program, not just the payload.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

I would rate the technical support as good, 8/10.

I previously used ActiveMQ, but I switched to IBM MQ due to the robustness of the solution.

If you are familiar with IBM products, you will find initial setup straightforward.

IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it.

We evaluated Active MQ also.

I would advise the potential user to read about security considerations and compliance with security standards.

Obviously, the biggest thing is that we’ll never lose a message. We use it for a lot of real-time information between our systems for integration, where we cannot lose data during that point in time, because then we lose track of inventory, our manufacturing systems, sales orders and things like that.

It's reliable. It's a solid foundation. It’s always up and running. MQ doesn't crash on us. It gives us the stability of the platform to be able to do all of the integration between our applications.

The user interface might be an area with room for improvement, but we use MQ Explorer and that helps solve a lot of our problems there.

On my test systems, I have over 150 queues; maybe a better way to manage those and to see them visually instead of just one long list.

We started using MQ back in 1996.

It’s up 24/7.

We haven't had any scalability issues. We keep adding more applications to it all the time.

We use technical support only when there are problems, which is very rare. It's always been good when I've had to call them; responsive, efficient.

I was partially involved in the decision process to invest in MQ. We were not previously using something else. We were actually early adopters, really and truly. We started using MQ back in 1996. We've been using it ever since then.

Initial setup was straightforward.

At that time, there were no other vendors on our shortlist.

The most important criteria for you when selecting a vendor to work with is obviously that it is a stable company; a vendor that will be around for a while. Those kinds of things.

Take a look at it. It's well worth the effort to play with it and to understand it.

IBM MQ could improve capacity, monitoring, and automatization.

I have been using IBM MQ for approximately 22 years.

IBM MQ is a stable solution, it is used mainframe computers and it is secure.

The scalability of IBM MQ is good.

We have approximately 100 people using this solution in my company.

The support from IBM MQ is good.

IBM MQ has a complex setup. The time it takes for deployment take approximately two to three months.

We have a special contract with IBM MQ that give us a certain price.

I am satisfied with the solution overall.

We have five to six people for the maintenance of this solution.

I rate IBM MQ an eight out of ten.