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IBM App Connect

IBM App Connect

Overview

What is IBM App Connect?

IBM’s App Connect is a cloud-based data integration platform with data mapping and transformation capabilities within connectors between high-volume systems. App Connect also offers near-real time data synchronization and an API builder that is adaptable to the user’s coding skill…

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Recent Reviews

App conectivity

9 out of 10
November 02, 2023
This tool was implemented to integrate several applications that business operates on different frameworks and technologies. The hability …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 6 features
  • Pre-built connectors (7)
    9.0
    90%
  • Support for real-time and batch integration (7)
    9.0
    90%
  • Data quality services (7)
    9.0
    90%
  • Data security features (7)
    9.0
    90%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Unavailable

What is IBM App Connect?

IBM’s App Connect is a cloud-based data integration platform with data mapping and transformation capabilities within connectors between high-volume systems. App Connect also offers near-real time data synchronization and an API builder that is adaptable to the user’s coding skill level.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visitibm.com/products/app-connect/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Alternatives Pricing

What is Jitterbit?

Jitterbit is a cloud integration technology for cloud, social or mobile apps. It provides accessibility for non-technical users, including easily creating API’s and data transformation scripts within the integrations.

What is Automate.io?

Automate.io is an application integration platform with a codeless, drag-and-drop interface. Automate.io provides integrations for over 100 popular business apps.

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Product Demos

Create SR by sending a text message to Maximo using App Connect and Twilio

YouTube

IBM App Connect - Send Service Request from Maximo to Salesforce and ServiceNow

YouTube

Welcome to IBM App Connect Part 2 of 4 Add logic to an event driven flow

YouTube

IBM App Connect Enterprise: Message aggregation

YouTube

Welcome to IBM App Connect Part 3 of 4 Visually map and transform your data

YouTube

IBM App Connect Enterprise - Migration and Extraction

YouTube
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Features

Cloud Data Integration

Cloud data integration software simplifies the task of integrating data from multiple different cloud applications

8.8
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

What is IBM App Connect?

IBM App Connect allows businesses to connect applications and build integration flows with a no-code approach, a catalog of pre-built connectors and common templates. It provides rapid access to business-critical information, while also securing and protecting, enabling businesses to more easily create new and engaging user experiences for their customers. Built-in AI with suggestive data mapping and transformation also speed up development and testing of hybrid integrations.

IBM App Connect Video

No Code Needed: IBM App Connect

IBM App Connect Competitors

IBM App Connect Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

IBM’s App Connect is a cloud-based data integration platform with data mapping and transformation capabilities within connectors between high-volume systems. App Connect also offers near-real time data synchronization and an API builder that is adaptable to the user’s coding skill level.

Alibaba Cloud Data Integration and Boomi are common alternatives for IBM App Connect.

Reviewers rate Pre-built connectors and Support for real-time and batch integration and Data quality services highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of IBM App Connect are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(31)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-5 of 5)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We have hundreds of applications that need to exchange data with each other. It has to be safe (no message lost, no message duplicated) and secure. it has to be transactional. We need to be able to investigate later what was the initial message received, how was the mapping done, and what was the end message sent to the destination. We need also a robust error handling framework, capable of storing the error for long-term storage and retrieval and for immediate triggering of necessary alerts. We need also a robust routing capability so that a specific message received from one application could be easily routed to one or many other applications. We realize this via MQ PubSub and Publication node in AppConnect.
  • Mapping through different formats
  • Lots of different connectors available
  • Flexible, allows you to be creative
  • Documentation - Documentation for older versions of the product was more detailed, with more examples.
  • Sometimes not very intuitive, you need a certain learning curve.
  • Some concepts are difficult to grasp or explain, due to "legacy" reasons (e.g. when to use DFDL vs MRM?)
- 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
Cloud Data Integration (6)
88.33333333333334%
8.8
Pre-built connectors
90%
9.0
Connector modification
80%
8.0
Support for real-time and batch integration
90%
9.0
Data quality services
90%
9.0
Data security features
90%
9.0
Monitoring console
90%
9.0
  • We can integrate different applications in just few hours
  • We can validate the received/sent messages
  • We can monitor any error appeared in the flows
IBM App Connect started as MQSeries Integrator (MQSI) more than 20 years ago. In the IT environment, this is like an eternity. And this allowed a lot of customer experience and needs to be embedded in the product. Without it becoming a legacy application. The changes done in the latest version are preparing it for a Cloud/containers world without losing the previously learned knowledge.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to build the orchestrations in the App Connect studio to load the data, implement the logic and functions. It has many options to connect to different platforms compared to other tools. It's easy to set, user friendly and easy to understand as all the tabs and fields under them are descriptive and very detailed.
  • Easy to connect to databases. Ex: DB2,Salesforce
  • Easy to build the activity flow
  • Easy to validate and verify the logic
  • Cannot open multiple orchestrations in the same studio
  • Need to install another studio if we need to refer to other orchestrations
  • Sometimes the system behaves unusually
It is well suited to building orchestrations, and using different activities. All the activities have their own features allowing users to select the appropriate activity like (insert,Update,Get,Delete). We can monitor activities in the web console (WMC) and will have the systems log where we can debug things. I feel this is a very easy and intuitive tool.
Cloud Data Integration (6)
86.66666666666666%
8.7
Pre-built connectors
80%
8.0
Connector modification
90%
9.0
Support for real-time and batch integration
90%
9.0
Data quality services
90%
9.0
Data security features
80%
8.0
Monitoring console
90%
9.0
  • I don't see any negative Impact .
  • I like using this tool to do my job.
  • I am comfortable using this tool.
I used the IBM WebSphere DataStage tool which is an ETL tool where we extract transform and load. This tool is a little tougher to understand than App Connect. For example, to build a job in App Connect is easier than DataStage. We can schedule the job to run in the same activity as for App Connect, but in DataStage we have to use an external scheduler tool like Autosys etc. and also run the UNIX script to kick off the job.
Praveen P | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM App Connect is used for exposing business APIs to external consumers and other partner applications in a secure manner. It provides an integrated platform for running, creating and managing APIs. It is also integrated with IBM App Connect Professional (f.k.a IBM Cast Iron). The APIs developer in Cast Iron can be exposed securely through API connect.
  • Securely expose APIs to Intranet/Internet
  • The pn-premise set up of API Connect is fairly easier compared to Apigee.
  • The development of API proxy is fairly easy.
  • 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.
They are one of the market leaders in the Gartner's report. Since it uses Datapower as the gateway, an organization which uses DP as a gateway can easily integrate IBM API Connect to their ecosystem.
From my research, the cheapest version of a cloud subscription is more [expensive] than Apigee. I think Apigee's cheapest is around ~300-400 USD/ month.
Cloud Data Integration (5)
56%
5.6
Pre-built connectors
60%
6.0
Support for real-time and batch integration
50%
5.0
Data quality services
60%
6.0
Data security features
60%
6.0
Monitoring console
50%
5.0
  • It helped our organization seamlessly integrate the on-premise services with partner organization.

IBM API Connect is positioned ahead of Apigee in the Gartner report. But in my opinion the development experience and the data transformation capability is way better in Apigee and it’s a proved solution and has a huge client list. (I have worked on an American Express implementation where the Apigee platform supported millions of transactions).

The analytics features are not available in the free Bluemix version of API Connect. Whereas it is available in Apigee. The security features in Layer 7 (now known as CA API Management) are way better than Apigee or IBM API Connect.

Thrive, Apigee, CA API Management, IBM App Connect
3
1. Integration of services and business functionalities across different business verticals
2. Daily, Monthly and Weekly data loads and feeds.
3. File Handling
4. Securely exposing Web Services (REST and SOAP) to applications outside the ecosystem.
5. Bulk data loads in Salesforce.com
4
1. People who have hands on experience in the IBM Middle ware technologies like IBM Message Broker, IBM Integration Bus, IBM Data Power, IBM DataStage, Jitterbit, Dell Boomi and other ETL products
2. Good understanding of Application integration concepts, Web Services (SOAP and REST)
3. Understanding of XML, CSVs, JSONs
4. Understanding of the endpoints and their functioning like Salesforce.com, SAP, Oracle (At least the basic concepts)
  • Salesforce.com integration. IBM App Connect has pre built connectors for different endpoints (Like Oracle, SAP, Peoplesoft etc) which will save lot of development time
  • File Handling in different data formats like JSONs, XML, CSVs and Fixed Length and scheduling of Data loads and feeds
  • Web Service Integration (RESTful and SOAP)
  • User friendly Web Management Console access through a browser for monitoring purpose
  • Handling huge files for daily, weekly, and monthly data load jobs
  • Integrating Oracle with Salesforce.com
  • Integration of web services
  • Continue using for dataloads and for web service integration
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.
Usually, the IBM Ops team provides a resolution or a response for 80% of defects raised in my project. There is one which has been open on their end for more than 3 months. With literally no response even after multiple follow-ups.
Yes
Yes. They provided an immediate fix.
For one of our clients, we were having performance issues in production for some bulk data loads. IBM's Ops team was very prompt to get into a call and assist in resolving it.
Andrew Mills | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cast Iron was one of many iPaaS solutions that we chose to evaluate to solve several integration problems we had across the business. This product was evaluated by myself and several of my colleagues but never brought into a production environment. The primary reason for us never bringing into production is the numerous issues we had just during the evaluation as well as the non-intuitive interfaces.
  • During our evaluation the support was fairly good as they were willing to spend literally hours on the phone trying to work through some of our issues. Unfortunately, they were unable to resolve them all.
  • The UI crashed constantly while trying to develop integrations.
  • The UI was not nearly as intuitive as many of its competitors in the iPaaS space, which lead to a much larger learning curve.
It simply didn't work in our environment and compared to the other iPaaS solutions on the market it falls really, really, short. It is almost like IBM bought Cast Iron and never really put any effort into making it better.
  • We never implemented Cast Iron in production. When compared to five competing products in the iPaaS space it didn't make it past the first few test scenarios we threw at it.
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.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We are an IBM reseller and consulting partner. In my role leading our Salesforce practice, my main area of interaction with IBM is WebSphere Cast Iron as an integration middleware for integrations with Salesforce.
  • WebSphere Cast Iron allows us to integrate Salesforce with other cloud and on-premise systems quickly and efficiently.
  • Templated Integrations and connectors for Salesforce and other systems allow us to integrate with confidence and speed.
  • The variety of form factors allows us to right-size our solutions for customers and the complexity of initial integrations vs the roadmap a customer has for future integrations.
  • WebSphere Cast Iron is not aligned with the Salesforce product roadmap in the way that other ETL competitors are. When I speak with Salesforce reps and other partners they see Cast Iron as lagging significantly behind in that ecosystem.
If an integration is highly complex, it requires extreme throughput or high levels of transformation in the middle tier, and WebSphere Cast Iron is a better candidate than other ETL providers in the Salesforce space.
Cloud Data Integration (6)
56.66666666666667%
5.7
Pre-built connectors
60%
6.0
Connector modification
60%
6.0
Support for real-time and batch integration
80%
8.0
Data quality services
40%
4.0
Data security features
50%
5.0
Monitoring console
50%
5.0
  • WebSphere Cast Iron has allowed us to shorten sales and delivery cycles for integration projects.
WebSphereCast Iron is preferred for our sales and delivery teams over Informatica. We find the products and teams for WebSphere Cast Iron easier to work with here and find WebSphere Cast Iron better when integrating with non-Salesforce systems.
WebSphere Cast Iron struggles to compete with Jitterbit in most customer and project segments when Salesforce is involved in the system integrations. Jitterbit is highly aligned with the Salesforce product roadmap and features, including Lightning Connect and Wave Analytics Cloud.

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