IBM MQ and IBM MQ Advanced (software)

The main use cases with IBM MQ  recently would be more of a publish and subscribe mechanism where we have multiple subscribers for the same data which is getting published and that's where we have utilized it.

However, we are moving away from it because it has limited options for scaling up and down.

Additionally, the licensing was one of the factors since it was a licensed copy and it cost us whenever we needed to scale up and down. That's where we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka.

The best features of IBM MQ  were stability and straightforward application functionality. It has vendor support, which was a significant advantage. In case of any production issues, we definitely get vendor support, whereas with Kafka and others, we have to rely on open community and our research.

We have utilized high availability with IBM MQ  through clustering in place, which was in the cloud. It was always available for us and worked very effectively. The only issue we encountered was related to scaling up and down, which required installing additional servers from a hardware perspective.

Regarding IBM MQ 's transactional integrity and maintaining data consistency, it performs effectively and I never faced any issues with respect to transactions or data loss.

The management tools come along with Universal Messaging, so explicit implementation of other tools isn't necessary.

IBM MQ comes with all the necessary encryption options and security features that we need.

The main differences between these two products, both pros and cons, in my opinion, mainly concern the scale up and scale down capabilities, which are more impacting us.

Apart from that, I don't see any issues.

I have dealt with this product, IBM MQ Universal Messaging, for close to four years now. Previously it was Software AG before being taken over by IBM.

It has vendor support, which was a significant advantage. In case of any production issues, we definitely get vendor support, whereas with Kafka and others, we have to rely on open community and our research.

IBM MQ has limitations regarding scaling options. The licensing costs associated with scaling up and down were significant, which is why we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka.

The main differences between these two products primarily concern the scale up and scale down capabilities, which are more impacting us. Apart from that, I don't see any issues.

I would rate their support as nine out of ten so far.

Positive

We are moving away from it because it has limited options for scaling up and down. The licensing was one of the factors since it was a licensed copy and it cost us whenever we needed to scale up and down. That's where we are moving to Apache-based services such as Kafka.

I work as an integration architect who helps integrate applications, handling data passing to SAP CRM , SaaS-based applications, databases, or Databricks  applications. In integration, I am familiar with IBM MQ and Kafka. Regarding IBM MQ, it is IBM Universal Messaging tool, which is similar to what MQ is. I have rated this solution 9 out of 10.

I work with both IBM MQ  and WebSphere Application Server . I don't want to say I'm an expert at either one of them, but I manage an infrastructure team that has both of these technologies in the infrastructure.

IBM MQ  is basically used in applications that are part of the ACE  product. It's also used a lot for my clients' workload that comes from B2B, and there are some MQ  B2B connections that come in, so we use it for that. The two main uses are for ACE  and for B2B from external clients.

The best thing about IBM MQ  solution is that it's guaranteed delivery and it's fast. Those are the two big advantages.

The transactional integrity of IBM MQ in maintaining data consistency is good. We haven't had any issues in four to five years.

I'm not sure if we've utilized IBM MQ's high availability. Our MQ VMs are set up in clusters, and I think our queue managers are set up in pairs. However, I don't know if we actually use any specific high availability features of IBM MQ that are out of the box. We have it architected with high availability because we use F5 load balancers, and everything about our architecture is highly available.

I haven't personally used the management tools with IBM MQ, but we do have them, and our middleware folks leverage them. I can't really comment on them because I don't use them myself. I don't think the management tools help optimize message flows, and I'm not really aware of how they help in this.

I'm not familiar with dynamic routing for IBM MQ.

The only issue I've had with IBM MQ in the last couple of years is that whenever there is a delta in the CPU consumption of a VM that MQ is housed on, occasionally we get those VMs that power off and power on. I'm not even sure if that's a problem with Linux or a problem with IBM MQ, but that's the only issue we've had with them. Otherwise, they're completely stable.

I would rate the stability of IBM MQ probably a nine or above. It's pretty good.

IBM MQ scales just fine. We've got 12 VMs running, and it's very easy to scale.

IBM has always been good with technical support, so I would rate them a seven or an eight.

Positive

We haven't used any other message queue software before choosing IBM MQ, as it's been our messaging software.

From what I understand, the pricing or licensing of IBM MQ is a one-time charge and then a yearly license fee. We pay about 6-7K per CPU and probably about 2 to 3K per year for each CPU licensed. It's not cheap.

Everything that we have comes in as TLS, so IBM MQ's encryption doesn't really play in because everything we have that comes in from the outside world is TLS. On a scale of one to ten, I rate IBM MQ an eight.

On-premises

Amazon Web Services  (AWS )

What do you like best about the product?

Robust platform for internal messaging communication.

What do you dislike about the product?

Minimum downsides when working with a strong reliable platform such as MQ

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It connects different disparate systems with minimum change and least effort.

What do you like best about the product?

IBM MQ has provided our business with a stable and resilient integration backbone, ensuring that transactions are never lost. It has played a key role in safely modernizing our legacy systems while maintaining compliance in regulated environments. As a result, we have seen a reduction in risk and an increase in customer confidence, especially within our payment and core banking processes.IBM MQ combines enterprise-grade reliability with surprising ease of use once deployed.

What do you dislike about the product?

Setting up and managing queue managers, as well as configuring high availability, disaster recovery, and clustering, can be quite complex and demands specialized expertise, which increases operational overhead. Additionally, while native observability features are robust at the infrastructure level, they are less effective for end-to-end business transaction tracing, often necessitating additional tools to achieve comprehensive visibility.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It guarantees the one-time delivery of transactions, eliminating the risk of duplicate payments or lost instructions and giving us greater confidence in our business processes. MQ’s capacity to absorb traffic spikes and manage unreliable networks helps ensure business continuity, even during periods of peak load or unexpected outages.

What do you like best about the product?

Provide solutions for the different needs of the clients, such as Customer Support and Ease of Implementation.

What do you dislike about the product?

For the moment, I am pleased with the projects worked on together.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It has helped us in communication from Host to distributed, the benefits are a centralized solution.