The initial setup is complex and deployment took a few days. 

Ongoing maintenance can be handled by two or three technicians. 

Setting up B2B Integrator was complex. Right off the bat, we set it up on a HADR.  It's high availability and active on two different sites. Getting all the rules set and the firewalls open was challenging. It was complicated to get it to work in the mesh design. Total deployment time took about two years. It took that long to get everything fully working. We had a project team that included the integrators from Sterling and a group of three people from the bank. In addition to that, we had another five people handling network security, configuring the firewall, and setting up the database. So there were eight in total on our end. 

I would rate the setup as seven out of ten. Deployment takes a maximum of six hours if you consider the step-by-step procedures.

Building the servers will take additional resources, but installation itself is a one-person job. It also depends on what kind of capacity you are implementing.

The initial setup process is easy if you know the product well.

The solution's initial setup was straightforward. When the installation part of the solution is considered, the solution is user-friendly. The GUI provided by the solution ensures that one can carry out the initial setup process with ease. The deployment model consists of both on-premise and the cloud. Recently, we migrated to the cloud so that the solution could be installed anywhere.

The deployment process does not take too much time. There might be a need for extra time to deploy the solution if the developers need to develop all the configurations, which is a time-consuming process. Installation or the initial setup does not take much time.

We require technical information to ensure the successful deployment and maintenance of the solution. Although the information may be present in the IBM documentation, it is not easily accessible, making it difficult to obtain the necessary details. So, a person with experience can get the technical information from the documentation. However, if the person lacks experience, it isn't easy to handle the solution.

The initial setup is not very easy, but it's not very complex either. Part of it depends on the expertise of the person carrying out the deployment. If it's someone with experience, deployment will be straightforward, otherwise it can be difficult. Implementation time differs depending on various factors including the number of servers and PUs. Maintenance is simple if you have the right people for the job.

The initial setup of IBM B2B Integrator is simple. However, for some customers it is difficult.

To implement the solution, we follow a series of steps. Initially, we conduct a gap analysis to identify any discrepancies. Then, we gather requirements from various sources and comprehend the customer's business needs, including their reasons for seeking a solution and how it will be utilized. Based on this information, we propose the most practical scenarios. Finally, we proceed with building the necessary processes and templates.

The duration required for implementing a solution varies depending on several factors, including the specific use case and the capabilities of the engineer responsible for the implementation. If the engineer is skilled and efficient, the implementation process is likely to be quicker.

The complexity of the deployment really depends on the situation. It's quite similar to Software AG in those terms. It requires the correct operating system, availability of the database, firewalls must be open, etc. We sometimes lose time because not all the system requirements are correctly handled by the customer. A regular deployment can be completed in a week, and a more complex one, anywhere up to three weeks. The organizations are generally mid to enterprise-size and can have thousands of users. We might use up to eight engineers for the largest deployments and we cover a very huge infrastructure. We also provide support to our customers. 

I was not involved in the initial setup, as it was done in 2005. However, I was part of the upgrade many times. As we are moving forward, it has started to become a complex procedure.

I was involved in the setup. It was very complex.

Different components need to be in the DMZ. There is the authentication piece, which probably requires integration with something like Active Directory, which we didn't go with.

We're using Sterling's own data store. The sheer number of pieces and the communication, especially the communication between Sterling and IBM's other products, is not evolved because IBM acquired this company recently, relatively speaking. The integration between its core ESB and Sterling is not well defined.

In fact, we went down one route by using Connect:Direct. We actually had to abandon it after putting in a substantial amount of work. We then went with a simple FTP approach after that.

It seems like Sterling continues to operate as a very independent company within IBM, and that's a problem.

The setup is fairly complex. As you do more and more installs or migrations you get a little better at it each time and we usually come up with our own documentation that we customize. We go through it and we use it as a template for each install, for each version upgrade.

I was involved in the setup. I'm the one who designed it. It was pretty straightforward.

I was not involved in the initial setup. However, I have been involved in all the server refreshes, so I've had to actually set up the environment from scratch on new servers. I find it to be pretty straightforward for 5.2.5.

For 5.2.6, we've done some test runs and it's a little bit harder with installation manager now. I never had to do installation manager of 5.2.5 but I think once you get that down, it's not too bad. And once you get installation manager installed, it appears that upgrading after that is a lot easier than before.

The setup was not too complex; I've been doing it for a while. Of course, you need some advanced knowledge of B2B integration and study integrator tools, in order to go ahead and be able to install it correctly.

Usually, when I work with the customer, they come up from a tender RFP, where they have a complex requirement. They have a lot of legacy applications, and they have a different kind of hybrid cloud. They may be working with a Salesforce cloud and on-premises applications. It's not really straightforward. Typically, they are big enterprises with complex environments. It's rarely straightforward. 

I was not involved in the initial setup at my particular job, but I was in the past. The complexity depends on how you want to use the app. You can definitely use it as is, out-of-the-box. However, most customers are going to want to customize it to their business.

The initial deployment is very complex. I would rate it 10 out of 10 for complexity. The installation itself is pretty straightforward, it's hard to configure the business flows, and it takes a lot of time. 

The programming interface is old. You need to program everything in XML and XSLT, and that's an old-fashioned way to do things. It took me an entire year to fully deploy the system in a corporation of 60,000 employees. We're talking about 20,000 files a day. We have a team for deployment and maintenance, but the product doesn't require much maintenance — only regular updates. For updates and releases, the product manages itself. 

The initial setup is both straightforward and complex. The newer versions have an installation manager which helps. Depending on the way you deploy it, you have to know cluster versus single instances or nuances which may be a challenge.

The initial setup is simple to install. Its placement is very simple. However, for implementation and maintenance, you need some technical knowledge. So it may be a bit complex for basic users.

The complete setup is always complex. Any new setup you do is not always straightforward, it takes months. So there are two aspects to consider here. One is the installation part and one is configuration to make it work.

Installation was simple and straightforward. But the configuration to tune the system to make it function the way it was intended to, wasn't known up-front. For instance with regard to clustering issues we ran into when we were in production. If we would have known that up-front, it would have saved us time and energy in the chaotic situation we were in. Those sort of challenges could have been improved if we had known it up-front.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup.

Initial setup was complex in that we had a lot of legacy systems, and we were setting, or moving toward, a single platform, one version. That made a big difference from the complexity point of view. It's been simplified, and worked on; the transition from our multiple legacy systems to the new IBM solution.

I was not part of the initial setup, but I was there during two subsequent upgrades of this solution. It is not something you actually plug and play. It's very complex and it actually requires a technical consultant. It's not something which is very easy.

I myself was not involved in the initial setup, but our company was. We had some really good, smart Sterling folks, so it was OK for us. It was challenging, but it was OK for us. But, I heard it's a nightmare. This is why people hire us for Sterling work.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

I was involved in the initial setup. It has changed a lot since we had them in the past.

They are trying to come up with the more user-friendly GUI based solutions for installations. The first time we did it, it took time to understand.

I have done a couple of upgrades on the same installation. The second or third experience is better than the first experience.

For the initial setup, there was some learning curve on our side, being an account, but with IBM's help, we were able to do it easily. It could have been difficult, but with IBM's help we did it. I wouldn't call it easy, but it took as long as it did to do it right.
The difficulty is not with the tool but with bringing the team up to speed and giving them room to play with it. There's a learning curve with these environments, and once you set it up, it was downhill.

I'm not an administrator, so I didn't hear much in terms of the installation. I think it was smooth.

I was not involved in the setup.

There are some gaps that need to be filled in the initial setup. Especially when you're working in a multi-node environment. The issue is with port identification. We have latency issues with the application sometimes and there needs to be more customer visibility from the knowledge side with ways to overcome the latency issues. It took a couple of weeks to get support to provide us with alternatives for using extended ports in a clustered environment.

The initial setup is pretty simple.

I find the initial setup to be quite straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex. A company shouldn't have any issues with the process. 

The initial setup was a little bit complex.