What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to maintain the state of the database in two different places. We run Events on one database and replicate them on another database for external and internal use. We have different reporting systems internally. We either pull data from or provide data to external providers.
What is most valuable?
API is the best part of the solution. We can create APIs straightforwardly and quickly and build jobs for data migration. These are the two key parts that we use extensively.
What needs improvement?
We faced issues with error management. When there was an issue with a job, it was quite difficult to find the reason for the error in the environment.
There are multiple screens on the user interface. So we have to jump through different screens during the deployment of APIs constantly. It is quite easy to lose track of what we are doing. It was really easy to see processes running and what was happening in the environment. However, getting things from development to production was somewhat challenging.
The documentation is quite hard to learn. I rate the documentation a three out of ten. The product is really complex to manage.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for nearly nine months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is pretty much rock solid once we install them. Once, we faced an issue when Windows patches stopped all the services. When Windows patches were released, they would either automatically restart or they wouldn't start anything after loading the patch. We found out that we were upstreaming without taking the VMs from Automatic Windows Update to controlled updates. We turned on a feature to auto-restart services when the VM restarted itself.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When we purchase the solution, we get six runtime environments and load balance across those environments. The only limitation was on connecting to new systems or new databases. That implies quite a significant cost. We're probably connecting to about sixty external data providers and providing data to about forty business partners.
How are customer service and support?
We had got a proof of concept before we actually bought the solution. We had a support person we could contact whenever we had issues. For the first couple of months, we really used the services.
Once we got our templates all built up, we probably were in contact maybe once a month. We faced some delays because New Zealand is two hours ahead of Australia. As long as we didn't expect anything before ten o'clock, we've got pretty quick responses from support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
The product is really easy to install. It is one of the biggest benefits of the product because most of it is on the external cloud. We install an engine or a runtime environment and link it through VMware Cloud. So upgrades never happen in our environment. It happens on the cloud. It is a real joy that upgrades can occur without us having to do anything major.
What about the implementation team?
If we know what we are doing, the deployment could be done in a couple of hours. If you strike a problem, it could be a number of days to a couple of weeks. When something goes wrong, it's really hard to figure out what went wrong. We need eight people to deploy the solution.
The product provides the ability to copy jobs and use the configuration to make minor changes. We can reuse a template again and again. This ability speeds up development. Maintenance is all done through the cloud platform.
We don't typically have to do anything to the runtime environment that we've installed. It's all pushed out remotely from the cloud. Boomi does upgrades a couple of times a year.
What was our ROI?
The solution saves time if you’re trying to write code. It is a less risky option.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product's price is based on connections and is a little gray on what defines the connection. The product can get very expensive quickly if you connect to multiple databases.
The product’s costing model is cheap when you connect to only one or two databases. It becomes expensive if you want to connect to eight databases. We connect to a number of different places, but we have very low volumes of traffic on the majority of those. It becomes quite cost prohibitive for us.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
When we started looking, we planned to choose MuleSoft and got a quote. However, it was way too expensive than my organization was prepared to pay for. So we decided to find out what the others in our industry were using.
Datacom is one of our service providers. They strongly recommended Boomi. Boomi looked pretty good from the sales pitch. We also compared Boomi with Tealium. Tealium had an expensive upfront cost, but it was a one-off cost. Whereas Boomi was cheap to start. It was quite costly long term.
We went with Boomi because we had a proof of concept, and it was a cheaper option. When we realized Boomi’s ongoing cost, we started looking at Tealium, which turned out to be a significantly better financial model for us.
What other advice do I have?
I use the latest version of the solution. It is easier to use Tealium because it has one screen. The engine itself is a new cloud. So all of the maps, all of the complexity, are all done in the cloud.
We used MuleSoft at the previous organization I worked for. We also used Octopus to deploy and manage a lot of the environment in AWS. A lot of it was custom-built .NET or Java solutions.
People planning to buy the solution should do a proof of concept to know what they’re getting into and make sure they’ve got one of the support people with them and really focus on how to fix the problem if something goes wrong.
Overall I rate the solution a five out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
