MQ Integrator's architecture is unique among the products under test. Based on IBM's MQ Series product line, it layers a GUI-based BPM modeler over the MQ interface. To gain all the functionality in MQ Integrator 2.1, we had to install DB2, which comes with Integrator. If you want to live without some of the advanced features, you can run Integrator on other database platforms, notably SQL Server and Oracle. Because we were pitting these products against one another, we deployed IBM on DB2. Even with DB2, however, installation was difficult at best.
MQ Integrator was the most difficult to install and configure of all the products we tested. To follow the recommended installation, we first had to install and configure DB2. We were unable to get Integrator to install with a remote DB2 installation during our testing; only a local DB2 install would work. Once DB2 was installed and configured, MQSeries had to be installed and configured, including creation of queues and queue managers. Once all this was done, we could finally install MQ Integrator. IBM assured us that the release available when this article prints will have implemented "single-click" installation to give you a minimum running configuration without layered prerequisite installs. While installation is a small part of an EAI project, it is mandatory.
Integrator's design interface was easy to learn and use, with MQ Series queues as the transport mechanism. Integrator has connectors for major database vendors, and we could write "hooks" to handle data coming into and out of our custom applications (this behavior is actually part of the underlying MQ Series). Hook development is being expanded in the next release of WebSphere MQ Integrator, so that you can hook BPM processes also.
BPM process hooks are an essential upcoming addition to MQ Integrator. We want to know when a particular business process kicks off or fails, and we want the data handled differently under these circumstances--for example, inserting into an "Errors" database on failure of any part of a particular business process.
According to IBM, MQ Integrator's next design interface, like Sybase's current solution, will be based on the Eclipse editor. For management, Integrator 2.1 let us manage queues, interfaces and database connections. The largest long-term negative to MQ Integrator is error logging: When we ran into difficulties, we were forced to check three places--MQ, the system event log and DB2. We hope IBM will eliminate this annoyance.
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