IBM MQ Reviews

All our applications run around MQ. We run a backend system working with a mainframe and we distribute records via MQ. We are using it daily.

From the time I joined this company I have been working with IBM MQ. Until now I haven't seen any severe issues related to it. Most of the time it's running. That is the advantage of IBM MQ.

It could be easier to use.

I have been working with IBM MQ for close to 14 years.

It is stable.

It can scale but sometimes, in terms of volume, it is not able to handle a huge volume. We also have limitations of queues related to IBM MQ. We often need to handle a very big volume, but currently we do have limitations. If those kinds of limitations could be relaxed, it would help us to work better.

I'm working on the development side. There is a setup team that is dedicated to working on implementations. I don't have enough hands-on in the configuration of MQ to comment on the setup.

If you're looking for stability I would recommend using IBM MQ. But people, these days, are starting to work with Kafka, which is an open system. I don't have enough knowledge about Kafka to comment on it. I just work with MQ.

MQ is one of the key integrations that we use for the z Systems to the open system connectivity. It helps us to transform the systems from the legacy enrollment to the latest technologies, as well. I'm part of the legacy transformations team and it provides really easy migrations, when it comes to integration with MQ. Any other integrations are a little bit challenging for us.

As I mentioned elsewhere, it provides one of the most seamless integrations that we can do both from open systems to z Systems or vice versa. These are the major benefits that we see. Since we are major resellers for IBM products, we generally look for transformation from z Systems to open systems and this tool helps us in transforming those.

They need to provide more and more platform integrations because I'm not sure what are the latest upgrades, in terms of MQ as of today. The latest integrations are going to take place in different cloud environments. So, I am not quite sure as to how seamless it can be integrated with other environments and I need to check that. This is also part of my job exercise, that I need to do every time.

There were not many stability issues, for sure. MQ is predominately a stable product, right from the z System days. I started out my career with z Systems, so we used MQ with part of the integration and it really helped us.

A long time ago, and not in the recent past, we did experience some issues with the technical support.

Our company has its own IBM center of excellence, where we have all of the required expertise within our organization, predominantly for this product. In addition, we have partnership support that we are getting every time from IBM.

We haven't faced a situation where we needed to invest in a new solution, predominately since our clients already have MQ. We are just transforming, upgrading or optimizing those versions; we are only doing this type of work.

The setup is moderate; it's not that complex. Recently, we are working for one of the Microsoft technologies transformation, i.e., from the legacy Microsoft technologies to the latest Microsoft technologies and that integrates with some of the z Systems.They are using MQ as the integration layer and even there, it was a very seamless integration for us. It's not too complicated nor very simple either. It is at the moderate level, which for integration is anticipated.

There is quite a good amount of documentation that you can get either from the IBM Redbooks or from the IBM support websites. Also, if you are partners with our company, then you will get the required support.

Before installing, I would request you to do a quick analysis and go through the end-to-end process, as to what are your requirements and how to configure this product up-front, i.e., instead of directly installing it and then, trying to configure it on the fly.

In general, when selecting a vendor, we look for more and more support.

Most valuable for us are the queue depths and creations for the installations. Being a business in financial solutions, we depend on it more for those things, so it's very valuable for us. For most of the applications like JBoss and others we use IBM MQ.

It just needs a better installation. An easier user-friendly installation.

The stability is good. I mean we do have some issues but we always contact IBM whenever we have performance-based issues and we get solutions quick and fast.

Scalability is great.

The technical support is great. Normally, whenever we have an issue, within 24 hours we will get a resolution, so we can close it and leave it to the IBM technical support guys. We get a solution mostly within 24 hours, so that's great.

We didn't have another solution previously, we have always been with MQ.

I would say it was both straightforward and complex, but not that complex. I mean the installation normally would take some time and with all of them open, it's just a button click and you're done.

I wasn't involved in the selection of the vendors.

Go for it. You should always check out the performance and trust for a good solution.

We can do the authentication and authorization of incoming requests using IBM WebSphere and DataPower. That's important to us because we can confidentially send the data with restrictions to other platforms.

In terms of benefits, our customers are happier since we are doing a good job.

In the next release, we would like to see more authentication capabilities embedded and included in the existing product.

I don't know about the stability.

We are good with the scalable data in the product.

I haven't used the technical support.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

I'm not sure about alternative solutions considered.

I definitely recommend them.

When selecting a vendor, we are looking for timely interaction. In case there any issues, we need to get support immediately.

It can be managed from a web page.

The benefits of the new version are greater ease of use and management of MQ.

At a recent industry event, I discovered that the future version of MQ would provide more web services, such as API, and the ability to manage MQ using a web application. Those will be very good improvements to the product.

I can say that it's stable.

It is scalable, but not easily.

I have opened a ticket. Technical support are not bad.

Relationship is the most important element when looking for a vendor.

I was not involved with the initial setup. We usually get in touch with them in order to solve the issues.

Just go ahead and do it.

The most valuable features are the integration services in the company.

We are using it for the APIs, beepers, and beeper processes in order to integrate data into the source systems.

Actually, I am looking to move to the cloud. We need to integrate the databases that are in the company and provide API integration services in the cloud. Thus, we would like to see more cloud integration.

This product has very strong stability. We don't have interruption problems.

The technical support is very good. We have a partner in Puerto Rico. They have people with extensive experience, and they help us.

We looked at the Microsoft solutions, as well. However, IBM was most important.

We look at all the tools and then we compare them to WebSphere. We can then understand which tool we need.

IBM is a leader, but there is always room for improvement.

The most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor include:

• The support that they provide
• The knowledge they have of the tools that we need to purchase

We use it for message transfer, mostly for a queue of the messages. Sometimes, we also consider using the topic space solution. But it is mostly for transferring messages between two applications. The applications are located in a different country, so it is also used for communication of MQ to MQ. 

What I like the most about IBM MQ is the 

• reliability
• robustness.

What could be improved is the high-availability. The way MQ works is that it separates the high-availability from the workload balance. The scalability should be easier. If something happens so that the messages are not available on each node, scalability is only possible for the workload balance. That's a big difference. And the application must be prepared to consume from each node so that it doesn't lose a message. Otherwise, you lose the ordering of the messages.

I've been using IBM MQ for more than five years. We're currently using version 8 and we are switching to version 9.

MQ is known for its stability.

The technical support depends on the kind of request you have. IBM is a big organization, and sometimes it takes time, while other times it's very quick. But what is great is the documentation and they even define some bugs. They have a willingness to describe these as an APAR (authorized program analysis report) on IBM pages and they're easy to find for the solution.

The installation is easy but the configuration could be complicated because you have to specify a lot of stuff, like queues. It could be a little bit complicated to configure if you have some specific scenarios. For a simple scenario it's easy, but when you have somewhat more complicated scenarios — for example, when you have a hybrid or you need to support some specific security requirements which you use to implement custom components — then it's not easy.

The time it takes to deploy depends on what type of clusters you need. For deployment for testing purposes, where you do not need any cluster, it can really be done in one day, maximum. It's not that difficult. But if you need to deploy a cluster, like a Veritas Cluster, and to prepare the workload balance, it can take days, with system testing etc. You have to combine a lot of other components.

I would recommend it. If you're looking for a traditional queuing system, IBM MQ is the right choice because of the stability and the performance. And from the support perspective, it's enough to have a really small team. It depends on the number of instances, of course. But MQ is not difficult to support. It's mostly to solve communication issues for applications and to determine what type of communication you prefer: the traditional MQ or via JMS, where you have to put it into the headers. But if you pass it, it is very stable after that and has very good performance.

Originally, we were doing this in-house, and it was a huge effort. Now, with IBM MQ, we have increased our performance, and it performs really well. The queuing system, given the size of information, is helpful.

The on-premise installation is very valuable to us, since we are working with a lot of companies which have a very high degree of compliance.

I will say that, okay, we are coming from a long history as an IT company, and we have almost done queuing systems with other solutions. Moving from that implementation to something that is out-of-the-box, and the rave reviews, it was a great asset already. We didn’t have to worry about all the specific configuration, or installation of our own queue, and queuing system, and the brokers, and so on. It was some things a little bit out-of-the-box, that's why we like it.

I believe there is too much code to be done in order to handle the elements that you develop. We choose a new feature, we would choose something that is a little more … even more out-of-the-box, and gives me the possibility to configure directly where the messages should go, instead.

Also, the IBM MQ, it doesn’t really have a connector.

I believe the stability of the product has decreased since we began using it initially.

We had some load tests, and actually it was quite straightforward to make a scale actually. I believe we are satisfied with it. We are talking about 100,000 users, and it was performing well. So I don't know if it scales well when we talk about millions. But, for our needs, it scales nicely.

We do not have a direct contact with them. We have a desk line with them, and we have some sort of agreement. They treat us very well.

I do not get involved with the setup of the solutions. But, my team member was very happy with it, and said it was quite easy to install. 

We always must consider:

• Reliability is a key requirement
• There should be a roadmap
• Support
• Development

We also considered Apache Kafka as a solution. The main difference is that Kafka is an open-source platform.