IBM B2B Integrator Reviews

There are many benefits of this product.

One unique instance was when the transaction mapping and transmissions both happened in the same application.

We were able to translate the transaction from X12 to the application and vice versa. We were also able to communicate with the internal as well as the external application, i.e., with various up-to-date protocols available in the market.

The IBM B2B Integrator tool, as the name suggests, can be used to manage your trading partner's community and connections centrally, from one single application.

With the most recent releases of this product, the installation and administration have become much more complex.

After SI v5.2.4 there are major changes happened to the product with some new features and capabilities., which in turn are good. With features like advance communication, High Availability etc. installation and management of the tool has become little complex. Introduction of installation manager was not a conventional method of B2Bi installation. Everything comes with the price. If you want your infrastructure to be up to date and available all the time, Complexity is something you have to take up with it.

I would like to see that more simplified for the users.

I have used this solution for more than 10 years now. I still think its pretty good and up to the date solutions for many but not limited to MFT, EDI etc.solutions

We have not experienced any major issues in terms of the stability. There is continuous support that we receive from IBM.

There were no scalability issues.

The technical support is excellent, as long as you are covered with your contract.

I was not involved in the initial setup, as it was done in 2005. However, I was part of the upgrade many times. As we are moving forward, it has started to become a complex procedure.

The pricing is a bit on the higher side for a small organization. If you have a large organization and have scope for using other IBM products, then you have a chance to negotiate with them.

We did not evaluate any other products before the choosing this one.

During the upgrade, we gave a thought to the Oracle Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution for the same purpose.

You should evaluate your business, as the statistics play an important role in deciding about this product. If you study the requirements in detail, then you will reduce the chances of failure quite a bit.

I am a consultant and B2B Integrator is one of the products that I implement for my clients.

This tool helps with understanding the products by improving communications.

The most valuable features assist with understanding data formats and transforming data.

The tool requires you to write a lot of code in Java and XSLT, which makes development tough. There are other tools such as Dell Boomi that do not need as much coding.

The initial setup can be made a little easier.

Support for microservices is somewhat lacking.

I used IBM B2B Integrator for about one year.

The stability of IBM products is better than other vendors.

I think that scalability is good. Two or three people might be required to work on a small project, whereas larger projects may need between five and ten users.

I have experience with a few similar solutions from different vendors. One of them is MuleSoft, which is leading in the support for microservices but are concentrating on API-related tasks.

The initial setup was a little bit complex.

In summary, this is a good product but I would prefer one that requires less code.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We use the Windows version of this solution. It integrates with a proprietary, SQL-based ERP. It provides standard EDI using VAN, AS2, FTP, SFTP, HTTP. 

The full cycle from order to payment is covered. Also, it performs XML realtime transactions where customers can check stock, order status, and place realtime orders. 

B2B Integrator has reduced manual entry of purchase orders. Everything from the order to fulfillment to the payment process, except for physical packing and shipping, is fully automated for some customer orders.

The most valuable feature is having a full set of tools in one place to create customized business processes, mapping, and connectivity. It includes everything you need for B2B. 

The improvements that need to be made are mostly little things.

The Extended Rule windows in the mapper only have two settings: small window or full screen. When working on an elaborate rule, I end up creating it in notepad and then pasting it into the Extended Rule window, which is not convenient.

We have been using this solution for twelve years.

• Partner onboarding
• In-house application
• Enterprise integration
• B2B EDI enabling
• Single point integration solution

This solution supports almost all enterprise integrations and B2B/EDI protocols and messaging standards. It provides a clear roadmap and visibility on product upgrades and features.

• Allows for easy integration with heterogeneous applications.
• Out-of-box process orchestration yields quick implementations.

• API-Fication required, and there should be more clarity on their cloud migration strategy.
• Map translator needs more enhancements.
• End-to-end visibility and monitoring application required. The control center is available and covers this area, but it still fails in many monitoring scenarios.

It is easy of use and it's easy to maintain. It's also faster to on-board partners.

It has ended invisibility, which is not there any more. That's a big implement for any solution.

There are a couple of issues which could be improved. One is the outcome of the ITXA integration on installation. We need better visibility around code lists. There is the handling of code lists and API calls to support partial update of any interfaces, training partner management, all of which is not there today. Their integration with ICCs is only limited to ADI, but it should be open for other formats.

Also, there should be a single place to do things, rather than making it complicated, not moving away and truncating the old features but instead coming up with the new and still keeping the old stuff confuses people sometimes. I think that's pretty much what I would like to say.

I have used the solution for the past 15 years.

Stability is still not where it's supposed to be. There is always a challenge when we upgrade things and improve on new versions.

Scalability is great.

For my company, I would say the technical support is about 9/10. The only hesitation I have is the inability for IBM to understand the customer's need, and improve their product. Our requests were not responded to in a timely manner and the announcement was not done the way ABC would have benefited from it. But the majority of our concerns were addressed on time.

We were already an IBM shop but not to the newest technologies. So we ran into the situation where our systems were not as scalable. We didn't have end to end visibility, which became a key part of our business functions because we need to get into all the solutions.

We wanted to make sure that we have a single integrated application, which can fulfill the need of all the backend applications. Looking at the current solution to improve that was costlier. So we decided to go with an out-of-the-box solution from IBM, and that's where we are.

The complete setup is always complex. Any new setup you do is not always straightforward, it takes months. So there are two aspects to consider here. One is the installation part and one is configuration to make it work.

Installation was simple and straightforward. But the configuration to tune the system to make it function the way it was intended to, wasn't known up-front. For instance with regard to clustering issues we ran into when we were in production. If we would have known that up-front, it would have saved us time and energy in the chaotic situation we were in. Those sort of challenges could have been improved if we had known it up-front.

There were a couple of criteria when selecting a vendor. We had four big players. We did compare, we had a demo on-site. We did POCs and RFCs. After four weeks of exercise, we selected IBM.

The key challenge is that the Sterling Integrator has been there in this industry for more than two decades. There are key loopholes, or I would say there are low-hanging issues with the Sterling Integrator, and they could have all been improved.

Unparalleled, they try to invest energy to integrate with other applications of IBM products. The key essential part of what you are doing should be focused and unparalleled. I know it takes time. There are a lot of other fears being raised by lots of customers.

I have been a user for Sterling Integrator for the last 15 years. So it's not the first one for me and I see the same problems as all the clients. If those would improve, this would become best of breed.

There are also other challenges on the visibilities. Right now there are at least 10 to 15 players in the market, which build solutions using Sterling Integrator as a backbone. So why not IBM? If we have that as a single source of truth, we can install it in-house.

Whatever industry or company, it doesn't matter. Depending on their need, Sterling Integrator is still a big framework for anyone who is looking to integrate their backend applications which are in legacy mode today, and their point to point applications. If they really want to have this type of application, well it's scalable and Sterling Integrator is still the solution.

I have been a speaker here for Sterling Integrator, and I think IBM already has at least four or five prospects here. They're talking to me to understand how we did at ABC. So I'm helping them to get to us.

It's one of the super solutions today.

The business processes are the most valuable features. We were using FTP before. We are migrating to Sterling MFT. We are doing some modifications to send and receive files, and we are managing them with business processes.

Sterling B2B Integrator is a managed file transfer program. Beforehand, we were using FTP and each FTP server was standalone, not controlled by any management facility. Now we have migrated to Sterling B2B Integrator and we have Control Center. We can manage all file transfers by Control Center. We can also create new file transfers over Control Centers without doing some things on the File Gateway. We can also do that over the File Gateway.

It doesn't support the Turkish language now. They said they will support Turkish in the new release, so we are waiting. It's a problem now because we are opening this product to our customers, not only internal users. For internal users, maybe it's acceptable to use English but it's not acceptable for customers. They are working on it and, actually, by the end of this year, it will be available.

Stability is good because we are using the high availability mode. We are using two SFG (Sterling File Gateway) nodes. They are clusters in an active-active configuration, and we don't have any interruptions. The only bottleneck is in the database part and we are working to do something about it by speaking with IBM to see how we can solve this problem.

Scalability is good. When we were using FTP, it was not scalable; you have to install new servers for each one. With Sterling B2B Integrator, you can manage and collect everything on the same platform. It is an end-to-end solution. We have a mainframe, we have Sterling Connect: Direct on the mainframe, we have File Gateway, we have Unix and Windows Connect: Directs , and we have some security parts of Secure Proxies. Also, we did some integration with our LDAP Active Directory, so we don't create named users for company users. We just give permissions based on job function and adjust it. We don't need to create local users. That's why it's very scalable for us.

Actually, we started migration in 2015, and we are getting very good support from IBM. We also have other products from IBM and being a big company in Turkey. We are managing cases or PMRs like other products and we can get extra support. There are some clever technical guys there. We have direct contact with them and they support us when we need them.

As I've mentioned, the reason why we chose Sterling B2B Integrator instead of others was that it has an end-to-end solution. It has mainframe parts, it has Unix and Windows parts and it is also a centrally managed system with Control Center. It is good and better than others.

There are some other solutions, but they don't cover everything. You have to use some other product for the mainframe side. You have to use some other management tools or something like that.

That's why we chose Sterling Integrator; it has good functionality. It is guaranteed file transfer delivery. FTP doesn't guarantee it. With FTP, you send a file, it says it can, but maybe it cannot.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

We also evaluated Globalscape CuteFTP, CA XCOM, and IBM's own FTP solution. We were using IBM FTP on the mainframe side, and we were using CuteFTP on the server side. Some other groups in my company were also looking at Globalscape. We created a requirement list together with the security team and the servers team, to evaluate which solution can cover everything. IBM was successful, so we chose IBM Sterling.

We were already customers of IBM. We actually knew Sterling. It's not a new product. It was a Sterling company product, then it was acquired by IBM. It's better for us; that's why we are using Sterling now.

I recommend it.

The extendability is the most important feature, which we need. Needless to say, we like the way it works almost seamlessly with WebSphere products. Our work is mainly dependent on WebSphere, so Sterling fits in well for us.

From India's perspective, you are now completely changing the way e-commerce is happening. Efficiency, accuracy, and reliability are extremely important factors and Sterling B2B currently provides them.

It's a successful product and a big improvement for us. There are some areas of improvement, but what we thought it would deliver and the reality is pretty close.

Sterling cognitive analytics is a big thing. If they can do that, that will be great.

Stability is good.

Scalability is great.

Technical support is the issue I have. I think IBM has to do much better in terms of product support. IBM consultants, the software group consultants, are unbelievably expensive, and their support is of lower quality. The good part is that there is a knowledge base throughout the web and so we leverage that. But an improvement area for IBM is to provide better product support.

Our original architecture was WebSphere-based, so we were an IBM Business Partner. We started looking around and Sterling, of course, came out. So, it was a natural fate, more or less.

I myself was not involved in the initial setup, but our company was. We had some really good, smart Sterling folks, so it was OK for us. It was challenging, but it was OK for us. But, I heard it's a nightmare. This is why people hire us for Sterling work.

Actually, there were quite a few alternatives, but we are an IBM Business Partner and we rely on IBM. We try to fit in with IBM solutions, more or less. But we looked at TIBCO and we looked at something from Oracle as well; and there was a Microsoft product.

Get a Sterling expert. Without that, the product might not be successful.

We use it to move data files back and forth in a secure fashion. That's primarily what we do.

We move quite a bit of files. It gives us the ability to have a system in place that moves all those files and delivers them to the appropriate recipients.

I would like to see more analytics and more information gathering about what is going where. Right now, we don't have good insight as to what's going where within the ecosystem.

The stability has been fine in our ecosystem. We could have done the deployment implementation a little differently because we have two sites.

We should have had two sites up and running. That deployment was a little lacking. I think we probably could have fostered something a little better.

It scales well if you have enough money. It is a very expensive platform.

We have had no issues with technical support.

I was not involved in the setup.

You have to look at a lot of factors such as:

• Scalability
• High availability
• Disaster recovery
• Usability
• Performance

Just do your homework. That's all it boils down to. Every vendor and every customer is going to be different, depending on their host system.