IBM App Connect vs. Layer2 Cloud Connector

- great when you need to integrate applications without any message lost or duplicated and when transnationality is important - if you need the highest throughput possible and not much (or not at all) mapping is required, a system like Kafka is more appropriate

We had a scenario where our clients have thousands of external party vendors/committees who regularly sync SharePoint data. Managing thousands of external parties can never be possible without using a Layer2 cloud connector. We managed the local network sharing and SharePoint integration by using the Layer2 connector. Layer2 is convenient with a large amount of data as the per-user license is high.

• Just the ability to display and consume data through a single dashboard makes this a great application for our business purposes.
• With the ability to consume their exposed API, data validation and manipulation becomes a breeze.

Incentivized

• Layer2 provides best connectivity with SharePoint
• It syncs local network shared files to the SharePoint
• Provides details file history

• The development and the transformation capability is not so great. I believe IBM is looking to incorporate some of features of IBM APP Connect into API Connect.
• The authentications features are no way close to CA API Management (f.k.a Laye r7).
• The development experience is not as good as Apigee's.
• The GUI should be improved. Maybe the product team should see the other API management tools in their offering.

Incentivized

• Per User cost is expensive
• A lot of pre-requisites
• UI needs to be more user-friendly

It is the best on-premise application to cloud integration in the market. I guess IBM is planning to integrate IBM App Connect with the IBM API Connect solution.

Incentivized

You can do some really powerful things with this system. The overall design is an attempt to make configurable some of the routine tasks/common functionality, but allow for development/customization of the core of the application.

Incentivized

Support is good, however it takes longer than expected to get responses. When bugs are reported they often seem to fall into a black hole.

Incentivized

We did not select Cast Iron as our iPaaS solution, it was the weakest competitor in the field that we evaluated. Our experience was that it was not nearly as easy to learn, without in-depth training and guidance, and the developer UI was extremely buggy. We subjected each of the vendors to a battery of integrations, from simple to challenging, and it fell short on each one. One of the most simple integrations was grabbing a CSV file from an FTP source, parsing the data, doing a small amount of transformation, then inserting that data into an Azure MSSQL DB. After 2 hours on the phone with the Cast Iron support team, we were still unable to get this working.

Incentivized

We had also used Microsoft One Drive as a syncing tool but it requires Office365 for managing and syncing data across thousands of vendors which was not practically possible to manage users on Office 365. Layer2 resolved this issue by having 3 user licenses and they are enough to periodically sync all external parties' data with our SharePoint online.

• I don't see any negative Impact .
• I like using this tool to do my job.
• I am comfortable using this tool.

Incentivized

• Layer2 resolves the time management issue
• Resolved data syncing issues across different external vendors
• LOE optimisation with using Layer2 connector.