It has been used to address integration scenarios, security enhancements, and also for specific transformations in JSON format. This includes multiprotocol contexts such as MQ, HTTPS, and ephemeral SFTP.

Pros

Security
Integration protocols and services
Scalability
Policy enforcement
SLA monitoring
AAA
Transformation policies

Cons

API security
WAF improvements
Security improvements
REST support
Kafka support and event streaming

Return on Investment

Negative in maintenance and support costs
Positive in quickly definition and development
Positive in time to market
Positive, Centralized control of APIs (security, routing, monitoring).
Positive, Easy integration across protocols (REST, SOAP, gRPC).
Positive, Built-in security and scalability.
Negative, Complex setup and steep learning curve.
Negative, Limited flexibility compared to custom middleware.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

IBM App Connect

Other Software Used

Apache Camel, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, Amazon API Gateway

Amanda Erlank View profile

Integration Architect in Information Technology at Woolworths (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

The most obvious thing that DataPower does exceptionally well is security. All the built-in supported security capabilities allow us to isolate most security tasks to DataPower and as a result "protect" down steam services/systems to have to deal with security.
DataPower is very good at protocol conversion and as it is usually used on the edge allows you to narrow down the protocols used between the companies public and private networks.
The appliance concept makes maintenance, recovery and, management so much simpler.

Cons

The fact that once an appliance reaches end-of-life it becomes a doorstop. A company made a big investment and knowing that in 5 to 9 years you will be left with nothing makes the deal not so appealing.

Return on Investment

Positive is the time to market for the implementation and management of complex edge integrations.
Finding skilled DataPower developers has proven a bit of a challenge. Integration specialists are a special breed and DataPower specific developers even more so.

Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

The foremost thing that we use DataPower is for implementing top-notch level security in different projects. We use it as a security gateway when some internal client or external client wants to make a call to any of our APIs. The basic security implementation which we do for the projects is SSL which can get more and more advanced based on the requirements of the project. Some clients want to implement OAuth, some want to implement SAML, and some are happy with a 2-way SSL handshake.
Another big advantage of DataPower is that it supports all the major industry message formats. It especially has an inbuilt component called the Multi-Protocol Gateway which comes installed in the box itself. It's the best thing if you want to convert an XML to JSON or vice-versa. It does all those conversions at wire-speed doesn't matter the volume of those transactions. We also use it with MQ while interacting with Mainframes and legacy systems. It supports all MQ properties and gives us the flexibility to change the message as well if required.
We have used DataPower in integration with ServiceNow as well to raise incidents and trigger emails to respective clients by writing custom scripts which continuously runs on the DataPower logs. As soon as they see any particular error for the services which are being monitored, they send an SNMP trap to ServiceNow with the error message and an incident is raised.

Cons

The old interface is being really missed by our team as the new WebUI interface is not that intuitive or easy to work with. It takes a lot of time to load. There should be an inbuilt wizard for creating a Rest service as well like there is for an XML based service.
IBM support is very knowledgeable but it's not that easy to reach them. They don't release the fix patches very soon which also becomes a big issue in certain situations where critical projects are involved.
Lastly, DataPower has its steep learning curve and it requires time and effort on your end to gain full control and make the most of the advanced features which it offers. Finding the right resource in the market is not that easy.

Return on Investment

It has really taken our business to the next level. We have expanded and integrated with so many new vendors and for all those integrations DataPower is serving as our security gateway.
We don't have to depend on any other tool for doing the load balancing of the incoming requests as that is also taken care inside the WebSphere DataPower Gateway box itself, thereby distributing the load equally.
It has made our platform much more secure, uniform and robust to deal with any kind of incoming message format or threat as well due to its latest security mechanisms and huge processing power.

Other Software Used

IBM MQ, Skype for Business (formerly Lync), AWS Cloud9

Amazon API Gateway

Azure Application Gateway

AS2 Gateway

IBM DataPower Gateway

What is IBM DataPower Gateway?

Categories & Use Cases

Most Frequent Users

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Finance and Insurance

Manufacturing