The messaging part is the most valuable feature. 

One valuable feature is that it is event-driven, so when new data is available on the source it can be quickly processed and displayed. Integration is definitely another useful feature, and B2B is one area where webMethods has its own unique thing going, whereby we can do monitoring of transactions, monitoring of client onboarding, and so on.

There are many valuable things from an EDA perspective, and webMethods helpfully supports a lot of formats. Considering their market strategies, I think webMethods has it all. And now there is webMethods.io, which is a complete cloud-based solution provider. Unfortunately, they are mainly known in the market for their broker transactions, and this is a perception I believe needs to be overcome.

Lastly, although I'm not too sure about the latest features, I believe they also have a service designer now, where you can work out the particular package that you want. 

We use Active Transfer quite a bit. It's very convenient because it is integrated with Integration Server. That means you can deploy an event-driven architecture, based on SFTP, which most people can't pull off. Most of the time, with SFTP, there is file polling and it's not an event-driven architecture. But webMethods' solution allows you to plug into their integration server and have a totally end-to-end event-driven architecture.

The comprehensiveness and depth of Integration Servers' connectors to packaged apps and custom apps is unlimited. They have a connector for everything. If they don't, you can build it yourself. Or oftentimes, if there is value for other customers as well, you can talk with webMethods about creating a new adapter for you. That's particularly true of their cloud-based webMethods.io and their hybrid cloud solution. It's an on-prem plugin called CloudStreams. That allows you to connect your on-prem services with cloud-based things. The number-one example that everyone always gets is Salesforce.

That depth of comprehensiveness is similarly true for the solution’s connectors to SaaS apps, IoT devices, and legacy applications. That is the number-one strong point of webMethods. It can connect to anything. There are so many out-of-the-box connectors for SaaS things. There are JDBC adapters, SAP adapters. They have pretty much unlimited connectivity, or you can build it through their toolkits.

It provides a single hybrid-integration platform for all our needs.

One of the most important features is that it gives you the possibility to do low-level integration. It provides a lot of features out of the box, and over the years, it has matured so much that any problem that is there in the market can be solved with this product. We can meet any requirements through customizations, transformations, or the logic that needs to be put in. Some of the other products struggle in this aspect. They cannot do things in a certain way, or they have a product limitation, whereas, with webMethods, I have never faced this kind of problem. When clients come to me with any problem, in about 99% of cases, I say, "Yes, it is feasible to do through webMethods." It has reached such a level of flexibility and maturity. Most of the things are available out of the box, and even if something is not available out of the box, we can customize it and deliver it for a client's requirements.

There are three features of Integration Server that are the most valuable. One is the webMethods Designer. That helps our developers develop on their own. It's very intuitive for design. It helps our developers to speed the development of services for the integrations.

The second feature is the reliability. Mandiri Bank is the largest bank in Indonesia. That translates it into a humongous volume of transactions that flow down from the channels and go through the Integration Server, and then to the core banking itself. The components of Integration Server need to have 99.999 availability. It needs to be reliable all the time, available, and to be a scalable platform.

The third of the highlights of the features of Integration Server is the small footprint for infrastructure. It can run on any commodity hardware, unlike other solutions that need to run on specific hardware. It gives us the freedom to scale the platforms and create the greatest possible agility for the organization to expand, based on the demands. The other side effect of that is the additional advantage of transforming the architecture that we currently use into more of a microservices base. It gives us more flexibility and agility, going forward.

The main benefit of this product is the speed of the development process and the speed of the business. It has a good integration server and a very good API portal. WebMethods has the tools to develop everything you need and the custom code is relatively easy. It makes the development, the product, and the business more efficient. This is a very strong and useful tool.

From a user perspective, the feature which I like the most about Integration Server is its designer. If you compare it with other open-source platforms like Spring Boot, even though it is lightweight and you can customize the way you want it, as a programmer if you look at it, the designer is the major feature. You can write your logic with basic knowledge of, for example, programming languages like Java. You have that palette feature where you can plug and play and write the logic that you want. That's the feature I like most about webMethods. 

It's customizable. You can write your own adapters. We have customer adapters built on protocols like PCP, Plain PCP sockets, as well. You can write your own adapters framework.

The solution is scalable.

It is very open. It is extremely rare for us to find something that we are trying to integrate, but we can't integrate it. In the past seven years, I don't think that has ever happened. For any problem that we are looking at, the Software AG solution can solve. That has probably been the most valuable feature.

Application integrations are offered out-of-the-box, and that is extremely important to us. This is one of the main use cases that we have for it. It is about 60 to 70 percent of the workload in our application today.

The product supports various types of digital documents, including XMLs and EDI.

What I like best about webMethods Integration Server is its portfolio of connectors. Every integration product has different components to interact with SAP, Salesforce CRM, etc. My organization includes the type of connectors a product has, apart from license availability, usage, and so on, as the criteria for choosing or recommending a solution.

In terms of the feature set, any integration software you use will have to connect different components of enterprise software. Depending on the enterprise software a financial institution, such as a bank, will be using, my company first checks the available connectors in the product, product maturity, and what other solutions can be integrated with the product before making a recommendation to either reuse the product if you currently have a license for it, or purchase a license if you don't have the license yet.

For example, when an enterprise invests in SAP or Salesforce CRM software, that investment is very significant. When you need a form of interaction to exchange data, that's when you use an integration product, so I'm saying that the actual value of integration software, such as webMethods Integration Server, is its ability to connect with other enterprise software.

It's a visual tool, so our transformations can be quickly implemented without a lot of fuss. The fact that we have an easy way to expose REST services is also very interesting. It offers the possibility to connect over GMS to synchronize message brokers.

Using an adapter is quite easy. For example, the SAP adapter works very well, and connecting to custom applications is very easy.

We would use MQTT when we need to connect to IoT devices. For the other legacy apps, in most cases, we use the adapters. Acquiring an adapter is quite easy.

Integration Server provides us with application integration, data integration, business-to-business communications, APIs, and microservices. Internally we don't use it for data integration, but it is possible. We don't work with microservices but I know that it's also possible.

It is important to us that Integration Server offers us a broad range of features like application, data integration, and API. It's important to have that kind of broad setup because it's a service burst. It's in the middle of a lot of integrations. It has to be able to have a lot of features

There are a few things about this product that we definitely like. It is very robust. If you build it nicely, you can't go wrong with it. It's rock solid.

The development is very fast. If you know what you're doing, you can develop something very easily and very fast.

The synchronous and asynchronous messaging system the solution provides is very good.

The most valuable feature of the webMethods Integration Server is the built-in monitoring, auditing, RETS, and SOAP services.

The most valuable feature of webMethods Integration Server is all the capabilities it provides. We leverage most of the features, that they have offered to us. Our vendor has made some additional features on top of the webMethods Integration Server and we use all the features together.

Because we use most of the platform, it's hard to call out a most valuable feature, but it's probably the ease of mapping which is the single largest feature. It gives us the ability to craft anything. A lot of single-purpose technologies, like Mirth, are good for healthcare messages, but we use webMethods not only for healthcare messages but for other business-related purposes, like integrations to Salesforce or integrations to Office 365. It's multi-purpose nature is very strong.

The ease of deploy and maintenance of integrations is a key element for us. If the strength is the mapping tool and the ability to change quickly, and having all of the components that we can then alter as we need to, the result is that it allows us to react very quickly to changing business demands. For example, we have a need to send the same types of data to many different integration partners, and because we're able to tailor the delivery to each endpoint, but use one master flow, it allows great economies of scale.

It is reliable and works very well. 

The integration with platforms is great.

It's straightforward to set up. 

Technical support has been responsive when we need assistance.

It is a very stable product.

The solution can scale as required. 

I like the stability of the webMethods Integration Server.

What I found most valuable in webMethods Integration Server is its strong ESB. It also has strong API modules and portals.

Some of the key features are the integration platform, query mechanism, message handling within the bus, and the rules engine. We've had a really good experience with webMethods Integration Server.

The API Gateway is very good.

The Integration Server is very good.

Terracotta is very useful.

There are many components that I have used.

It's very flexible and a good platform to use.

The most important thing when using it is that there is a really good community from the producers, Software AG, and the Empower platform, where you can find almost every kind of error or problem that you face. You can find a solution right there in the community.

There is also typical support where you can create a ticket if you are not able to find the issue on your own. If it's something new, then they will approach you and help you in resolving it. 

The best features are these adapters. Software AG developed many different adapters for the usual databases, et cetera. I was not using Salesforce much. However, it's really handy that you have an adapter for these popular platforms. It's just plug-and-play.

When it comes to the user interface, I'm already really used to it. I cannot say anything against it. For me, it's easy to use.

When there is some issue or bug, they work on the development of that. And then, in the next release, they just fix it. I had a few situations when I faced some issues, and then I had to report them. Within the next three weeks, typically, it just gets fixed.

We needed a tool that was able to orchestrate and help us configure our APIs so that we could maintain and see the heartbeat, traffic, trends, etc.

Currently, we're using this solution for the integration server which helps us to integrate with the mainframe.

The most valuable feature is its ability to quickly spin up connections between the real-time interfaces, as well as being able to regulate how much traffic moves back and forth between applications. This is important because one of the things that we utilize it for is payments from our customers. We can have multiple customers utilizing the same set of APIs and they can make real-time payments into our system, which is really useful. We don't have to worry about people making duplicate payments or providing incorrect information. And we get that information right away.

Also, the solution has a very comprehensive and versatile set of connectors. I've been able to utilize it for multiple, different mechanisms. We do a lot of SaaS and we do have IoT devices and the solution is comprehensive in those areas. There's a standard utility protocol for talking and several of the applications we have utilize that utility. It's a standard set of APIs, and Integration Server adapted to that right away. For our website we're utilizing standard Wisdom APIs and we were able to create that. The solution is very versatile with all its capabilities and is able to do what we need to do. We even use it for Salesforce.

It provides us application integration, data integration, business-to-business communications, and APIs. We haven't used it for microservices. That range of features is very important to us. It conducts our real-time payment applications, as well as our real-time integrations between our internal applications.

The designer is very helpful in developing services.

Interacting with and developing services is very fast. As long as the requirements are clear, developing service will take no longer than one or two working days.

The tool is very powerful and user-friendly. For example, I have a new team member and within one or two months, they are able to write and deploy services. Once you have a basic understanding of it, you can begin developing.

High throughput and excellent scalability.

There are actually a lot of valuable features. Terracotta is a very good component that enables us to arrange data caching and look at the solid state. Also, the API gateway is a very good component that can handle relevant caching and integrations and also load permitting. There is a message term for this. There are many components that we are currently using and all of them are very important. Also, we will use the DPM for workflow management and digital user transformation in the future.

• API development
• Traditional ESB development
• B2B development.

The Integration Server

It's obvious that the heart of the product lies here. It's comprised of all aspects of ESB (Enterprise Gateway, Adapter, TN, Java) and BPM (task, rules engine).

Universal Messaging

Universal Messaging is a Message Orientated Middleware product that covers JMS, MQTT, AMQP.

Universal Messaging design supports both broker-based and umTransport communication, and thus comprises client and server components. The server component has specific design features to support each of these classifications of client, as well as Scheduling and Triggers, Plugins, Federation, Clustering, and Low Latency IO.

Ease of use.

• SOA
• BPM
• Trading Networks (B2B)
• Active transfer (MFT)

Segregation of deployment for the environments is the most valuable feature of the solution.

The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to integrate with various servers.

When an organization is, for example, a bank, it can't use an open-source solution - even though open-source solutions are providing more current features. They need to go for a vendor-based solution like this product. 

It's a well-settled, mature platform.

The stability is good.

It can scale. 

All of the following three features provided by webMethods are valuable:

1. Application integration
2. Business process integration
3. B2B partner integration

But among these, I feel B2B partner integration is the most valuable. This module integrates two business partners and exchanges data through electronic data interchange messages in the form of specific standards, without any manual process needed.

The most valuable feature of the webMethods Integration Server is its reliability. It has a lot of great documentation from the service providers. Additionally, it is easy to use.

The most valuable feature is stability. 

The Software AG Designer has been great. It's very intuitive.

Best feature is Insight for monitoring, and as a debugging tool. It has saved us a lot of time during crisis situations.

It is a bundled product stack for A2A and B2B usage. It is one of the best products which I have used during my integration career.

It has all the features required to integrate and manage file transfers, Partner Management, logging mechanisms, adapters for mainframes, SAP, and many others.

Having experience with various EAI and ESB tools like Oracle Service Bus (former BEA Aqualogic) and Webmethods summary would be that everything can be done with any technology.

However the difference may be the time needed in order to implement the same integration features based on the existing product features.

From my point of view a good EAI and ESB solution needs to have what Webmethods offers

• a layer on top to isolate developers from the J2EE implementation ie to avoid implementing integration services in pure Java as if you were just coding the integration in Java
• Provides needed adapters yes, but with an intuitive front end that allows you to configure and use them (e.g setup number of retries for transient connectivity errors) rather than program in Java to implement calls to use the adapters
• A platform that allows continuous integration with a deployment engine and dependencies (and their changes) resolved and centralized in the server as a repository.

Some features reviewed

• Unit testing & Debugging capabilities: Webmethods allows you to debug your services in a step by step mode with variable watchers whereas in other programming oriented EAI solutions the testing in not dynamic and we can only rely in SOAPUI executions and reviewing returned XMLs and logs. From my point of view this is a decision driver.
• Data Mapping capabilities and XML management: In Webmethods you don’t need to work with XML parsing (if you don’t really want to) and data mapping and transformation is natural and based on UI drag&drop capabilities (No need to use XQuery or XPath if not needed). In webmethods you work with the Pipeline concept and needed transformations using a GUI designer. Canonical document transformations can be created fairly simple. Document structure/schemas are centralized in the server repository so there are no discrepancies when a document structure changes. If a document structure changes all services using that document get automatically updated. I still recall how complicated it was to manage XML transformations, parsing and schema dependencies within other EAI packages. Mapping was basically relying again on coding, XSLT transformation and library dependencies.
• In other solutions, basic tasks (like setting up a DB connection and test that) should not start a huge discussion troubleshoot thread leading the developer to spend most of his time troubleshooting and discussing about technical issues e.g not why he/she cannot connect to the database.
• Deployment and code changes: Webmethods has a central repository where an app dev resource is locking a given resource. Until that resource is unlocked nobody else can work on that item. Once a component is changed there is no deployment, changes are already in that environment. Once the code has been changed and unit tested migrating this to the next environment is a matter of a couple of clicks (no need to restart the server or wait minutes before you can see the changes). This helps having a system that allows maintaining continuous integration.
• Audit and logs: This is natural and simple in Webmethods, you can flag any service to be audited in their log database (on success and/or errors, when the service starts, exits, including parameters or not). You don’t need to have any extra coding for that. You can then use those logs to run your reports in SQLServer.
• Small features that help speeding up development, just as an example: commenting steps in an integration process is fairly simple in Webmethods while in other EAI solutions is a nightmare or impossible.

The tool supports gRPC. It is the best product in the market.

webMethods Integration Server is an easy-to-use solution and does not require a lot of coding.

The best part of webMethods is the out-of-box features that it provides to users, which ultimately saves on effort put into development.

All of the components are very independent but are tied together to give the business value.

The EDI is very eye-catching.

The most valuable components of the solution are API management and EDI.

I would say the core Web-based integrations work the best with webMethods. They are the most efficient and robust implementations one can do with webMethods. There have always been some ups and downs in its specialized modules, but I have found its core integration platform the most reliable.

In my opinion, the best advantages are: 

• platform scaling
• graphical data mapper (Designer and webMethods Developer in oldest versions)
• integration BPM process layer with services
• service management via packages.

Ease of implementation and flexibility to hold the business logic are the most valuable features.

CentraSite for governance and life cycle management. It frankly fills the gap between IT and business by having approval and policy enforcement on each state and cycle of the asset from the moment it gets created until it is retired.

The main assets are its 

• flow language
• debugging
• Broker. 

Flow language is far better and more flexible for debugging.

Broker and UM are the best.

The Integration Server and Trading Networks Server. They are the building blocks of EAI in SAG products, and they offer a very good platform.

How simple it is to create new solutions.

The solution's ease-of-use is its most valuable feature, in which complex issues may be resolved. The visibility with Java is not so easy. However, the solution allows a person to know where his application is in the ecosystem, which application he is using, what the protocol is and the number of requests. The solution makes identification easy. 

All of them are helpful.

• Integration
• Transformation
• Easy development
• Connectivity and adapters
• The variety of tools that are part of the webMethods product suite