IBM WebSphere Message Broker Reviews

We had different use cases such as point-to-point, and public subscribers. We have some APIs building business Message Broker and we have divisions such as the legacy mainframe. 

We pretty much use everything. Most of the integration is done with Message Broker.

Working in retail we get a lot of traffic on Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays, and during that time, whatever serves have been deployed we want to scale them vertically. 

We can create multiple nodes within the service itself and when we are not using it, we can stop all of those nodes.

Most of what we have is on MQ for communication, and it integrates well with MQ.

Before the cloud, it was very easy for us to build and it was quick to integrate.

Integration and mapping are easy, which is a major advantage. 

It integrates with MQ.

Scaling up and down is easy for us using execution groups and nodes.

It is easy to set up and deploy.

If you want to connect to the database, it provides solutions in India, but you have to purchase it separately. They are not mature enough and we have difficulties using them. They are expensive and not worth the money we are spending on them.

I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons.

Scalability needs improvement, it was easy to scale before microservices and Docker.

Technical support is good but they could have a better response time.

I think that they should provide us with some kind of capabilities that can be deployed. For example, if they have integration nodes that can be deployed separately instead of having a new, big server that has different components, to give us the capabilities to deploy everything on our own instead of building them up together. It would benefit us when it comes to scaling and building.

We have been using this solution for seven years.

We started with Version 7 and now we are at 10. 

We are planning to use Version 11 and move to the cloud. It's still in process.

I would say that it's pretty stable, we have quite a bit running on it. It depends on how we configure it or what kind of infrastructure we are providing. For example, if we migrate from an old version to the new version and it's not done properly, you will experience it crashing every time. We had to build properly around it to achieve the proper results.

If it is being used with a simple deployment or as a server, without doing a proper configuration, then it may not work well.

It was scalable before microservices and Docker. It is now looked at differently. With the new version of Message Broker, it's promising to get capabilities that we can use.

We have a team of 10 to 15 developers, senior developers, and leads who are using this product.

Technical support is really good.

I would rate them an eight out of ten because it goes from level one, two, or three and sometimes it takes time, based on the priority of the ticket that we are creating.

Previously, we were using Profusion. It was along the same lines as IBM WebSphere Message Broker. We ran into many different issues and at one time, we were running two solutions, Message Broker and an Oracle solution. Oracle has a database with different capabilities. It records every question that comes in. It was very difficult to maintain, and it just kept crashing and consumed the memory.

It has so many issues, we stopped using it and went with IBM WebSphere Message Broker.

If you compare it with the previous versions, this was pretty straightforward and easy to set up.

There are always additional fees.

It's a good solution but it's questionable now that microservers have come into it. I can't really comment on whether I would recommend this solution for those who are looking to implement this solution, because everyone has their own use case.

I would rate IBM WebSphere Message Broker an eight out of ten. I had a good experience with this solution, and have not had any issues that we could not fix or handle.

We are system integrator and solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

It comes with a development tool and we use it to develop integration flows. I am normally working with financial companies when using this solution. They use it for communication between heterogeneous applications at the backend. 

Message Broker has a broad set of application adapters that are used to integrate a very large list of applications.

Performance-wise, this solution is really stable and reliable.

The size of the container used in the deployment is still a bite large and I think it should be improved and become lighter.

It would be useful to make container deployment easier .

I have been working with IBM WebSphere Message Broker for the past seven(7) years.

This is a very reliable and stable solution that is used for a very large number of transactions. It has been on the market for about 20 years, so it is mature.

This product is scalable.

I have been in contact with technical support and I find them to be good. Sometimes when I raise a ticket, it is just to get extra support to provide guidance for a feature that has been improved or discontinued.

Given the stability of this product, it is rare that one opens a support case because of a defect in the code.

I am familiar with some other solutions that have a fancier toolkit and are easy to use, but with IBM, it is more stable, reliable, and trusted. At the same time, it is more expensive than other products on the market.

The most recent version is really easy to install and configure, which will take about one day. The deployment is a simple drag-and-drop, so deploying it will take two days at the maximum.

This product is more expensive than competing products.

We compare other options for our customers and we look at the pros and cons of each solution. Normally, customers decide based on their budget, the features, and the expected workload. In most cases, I recommend IBM.

This is a good solution and when I have a customer that needs something with this capability, it is the first option that I suggest to them.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I'm part of the company middleware, and we are managing things with Spheres, IHS, and also HU and EAZ. I've just become involved in trying to sort out a roadmap to migrate the EAZ from IAB to ACS Enterprise App Connect, that's the latest IBM technology. I'm a solution designer and we are partners of IBM. 

I mostly like the integration which is the component feature.

I haven't completely tested the solution. I have a CMM BPM background, and recently moved to work on this so I'm only now getting exposure in this particular area. It's difficult to comment at this early stage but I find the installation configuration is quite difficult compared to other solutions. The other issue is that I don't have cloud, and we can't get any cloud where IBM is moving. I'm not sure whether we can move this application to the Azure or AWS cloud solutions. It's a major challenge and we still haven't had any kind of official documentation from IBM as to how we can move forward on that. 

I've been using this solution for seven years. 

We do sometimes get bugs and hardware glitches that require a memory reboot but overall, in comparison to other solutions specific to the banking domain, this product is quite good. It's able to handle a lot of applications and has a high capacity level. 

The scalability is fine. We don't just have the direct users, but there are a lot of applications and things sitting on the ESB, and a lot of integration points. We probably have more than a thousand people using the function user ID, and the personal user ID.

IBM technical support is pretty good. Sometimes it's difficult to simulate issues, or reproduce the issue to make them understand the problem. It can sometimes also take quite a while to resolve an issue. Overall, we are happy with the IBM support.

The solution was already set up when I joined the team, but we still get requests regarding all the applications sitting on ESB which is a bit of challenge. Otherwise things are fine. 

I think it's a reasonably good solution but I also believe it has some good competitors like MuleSoft which has good incubation points and has a cloud solution. ESB is still in the data centers, not the extenders, and they're mostly on a non-cloud based platform. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

We use this solution to assist our customers with their core business challenges. The main purpose of this tool is to connect several applications together. My experience is based on two medium-sized projects that I have completed using this solution.

We have an on-premises deployment, as do many SMB in the Middle East.

This solution has improved the way our organization functions. We are using three or four services in the backend for reformatting messages, and it is straightforward to use.

This solution has many adaptors for convergence support. We need different messages formats for connection with files, databases, Excel sheets, etc.

It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format.

Performance-wise, this is a good solution.

The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is. The administration console is ok because it's used by the administration team or the technical team.

The external interfaces have limitations compared to vertical technologies such as JS frameworks like React or Angular that have lots of capability for UI and UX design.

This tool can be challenging when you use it for a really complex solution, or if you try to use it for a purpose other than what it is designed for. For example, using it as a BPM tool will be challenging.

This is a stable solution.

This solution is easy to scale. There is no limitation with respect to the number of applications that we can integrate.

I have also used Oracle Service Bus for these types of projects, and I feel that this solution is better. It is easier to use and it has better features.

The licensing costs for this solution are paid by the customer-side, and not by my employer.

IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost.

At this point, I only use twenty to thirty percent of the facilities or services that are offered by this tool. For the main purpose of the suite, I have no specific concerns about it.

This is a good product, but there are still some challenges.

If I were rating Oracle then I would give it a six out of ten.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We integrate messaging from the core banking systems to other systems via MQ.

The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution.

The solution can add container engines such as docker.

The solution is very expensive and has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for three years.

I give the stability a ten out of ten.

I give the scalability a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for enterprise businesses.

The technical support is good.

Positive

I give the initial setup an eight out of ten.

Some of the mechanisms are a bit complex. The deployment took two years.

The solution is expensive. I give the cost a one out of ten.

We pay for an annual license.

I give the solution a ten out of ten.

I recommend the solution.