IBM MQ and IBM MQ Advanced (software)

My main use cases for IBM WebSphere Application Server  are mostly web-oriented, involving Servlets, core Servlets, and Beans, which includes my personal projects.

The use cases for IBM MQ  in my context involve working in tandem with WebSphere, where data is taken based on events. I notice that people are increasingly moving towards Kafka, especially here, as it performs similar functions to IBM MQ .

In my opinion, the best features of the WebSphere Application Server  make it the ultimate product. There is nothing higher than WebSphere. The market has Tomcat , JBoss, and other low-level application servers, but then there is WebSphere. I prefer WebSphere particularly on AIX because it's a very powerful engine. AIX is a powerful engine, and I don't think there is any UNIX system which is better than AIX. I'm 100% confident about that. I have been working with AIX since my time as an IBMer in Europe and also here in the Royal Bank, where we have a huge forest of AIX machines, running WebSphere on many of them. I also have experience with WebSphere in Windows, which is also very good; from an administrative and development point of view, it's transparent. There is not much worry about having WebSphere on AIX or Windows.

I would assess the integration of WebSphere with third-party tools and services in terms of modernizing the IT infrastructure as very good. I was involved in an application where I integrated WebSphere with Node.js and also with Blue Prism . I executed many REST applications because at my core I am a developer. Although my title is architect, I am still a geek and a developer, and I started as a developer, so I carry that passion with me.

At the Royal Bank, I have benefited from WebSphere's high availability and clustering because the overwhelming majority of our environments are clustered with IBM HTTP Server in front. We have clusters not just with two WebSphere engines; some of them even have four or six WebSphere engines, all managed under IBM HTTP Server. Everything is federated.

From my perspective on the best features of IBM MQ , if given the choice between Kafka and IBM MQ , I would choose IBM MQ as it is by far the best. However, people opt for Kafka because it is open source and comes at no cost. This conveys my mantra that the best solution doesn't always align with being the right one, highlighting the significant difference between the best and the right.

Regarding the improvement of the WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere is at version 9.0.5.23, and last month they released another fix because they periodically put out fixes. Previously, there were very frequent version increases, but now they maintain the focus on 9.0.5 and its different releases. Oracle announced that 2030 will be the last year when Java 1.8.x will be supported, which raises questions about the future of WebSphere since it is based on Java J2EE 7 and Java SDK 1.8. I wonder what the future holds for WebSphere after 2030 since I have never seen any communication from IBM detailing this trajectory.

I have around eight years of experience with IBM products in general, as I was working with IBM Eastern Europe in Vienna before coming to Canada, and I worked with WebSphere, OS, even OS operating system, AS/400. At that time, it wasn't I5, I6; the name was AS/400. After coming to Canada in January 1998, I worked with IBM Canada in Steeles, Toronto, until 2002.

I would rate the support from IBM for their WebSphere Application Server as very good, although I have only called IBM for support two or three times in my life. Most of the time, I figure things out myself, so I would rate it a 10, with 10 being the best.

For IBM MQ support, I have only contacted support once in my life, and the experience was very good, so I can't complain. I would rate it a 10.

Positive

In my opinion, the initial setup of the WebSphere Application Server is not complex at all. I have been working with WebSphere since my time in Romania as part of IBM in Vienna, and now it is straightforward for me. While it might seem challenging at the beginning, once you get your hands on it, it becomes very straightforward.

The price of the WebSphere Application Server at the Royal Bank is influenced by our unique agreements with IBM, as it's a large establishment with numerous IBM products, including mainframes. I am not aware of the specific agreements, but it is similar to purchasing in bulk, where the pricing structure is not the same as buying a single item at a grocery store.

I still use IBM WebSphere Application Server, specifically the latest version which is 9.0.5, and I work with IBM MQ and Rational as well.

I have not had any experience with AppScan  or other testing tools; I am not utilizing any tools besides Rational.

I have used management tools with IBM MQ, and I find them beneficial for optimizing message flows. I utilize these tools, but often rely on my instinct, as IBM MQ is built on Java, which I have extensive experience with.

Regarding high availability with IBM MQ, we also have IBM MQ in clusters. Having IBM MQ in a cluster is useful since the cluster setup means we have some form of high availability.

I rate this solution 10 out of 10.

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.