RED HAT JBOSS A-MQ COMPARED
WITH IBM WEBSPHERE MQ 7.5
COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW MARCH 2013
INTRODUCTION
The ability to integrate systems and share data across the enterprise is a common datacenter
need. Shared data needs to be transported between endpoints, and in today’s connected world
we assume the capability to reliably move data is ever-present.
That is a compliment to messaging platforms like Red Hat® JBoss® A-MQ. Messaging gets data
from point to point in a way that appears seamless to end users. However, smooth system integration is no accident. When done correctly, reliably, and in an economical fashion, architects and
developers must consider many messaging options.
Red Hat offers multiple products that help customers meet their enterprise messaging needs.
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ is one of those products and the focus of this competitive brief.
IBM also offers multiple enterprise messaging products.1 Some products, such as WebSphere
MQ Managed File Transfer Edition2, and WebSphere MQ Telemetry3 work with and enhance other
IBM messaging products. For example, IBM WebSphere MQ can be enhanced with WebSphere
MQ Managed File Transfer Edition. This brief compares Red Hat JBoss A-MQ specifically with IBM
WebSphere MQ version 7.5.
THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE RIGHT JOB
Your specific messaging requirements should play a role in determining the messaging technology you select. Requirements often vary based on cost, reliability, throughput, latency,
and interoperability.
For many, reliability and cost are major considerations. In those cases, and in Java-centric environments, a Java Messaging Service (JMS) 1.1 implementation may be what is needed. JMS is a
specification implemented in Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and IBM WebSphere MQ. With a JMS provider
you get standard features such as:
•point-to-point messaging
•publish and subscribe messaging
•request and reply messaging
•persistent and non-persistent messages
•JMS transactions
•XA (eXtended Architecture) transactions
1 IBM WebSphere MQ product family web page - http://www-01.ibm.com/software/integration/wmqfamily/
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2 IBM WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer Edition web page http://www-01.ibm.com/software/integration/wmq/filetransfer/
3 IBM WebSphere MQ Telemetry web page - http://www-01.ibm.com/software/integration/wmqfamily/telemetry/
If you are just looking for a JMS implementation for use with Java applications, then the JMS provider in Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is an excellent choice. With Red Hat and
JBoss, you get both a JMS implementation and a full JEE 6 certified application platform.
For use cases requiring greater connectivity options and messaging capabilities than those in the
JMS specification, the Red Hat JBoss A-MQ messaging platform is a viable choice. Red Hat JBoss
A-MQ supports JMS 1.1 and brings language interoperability, multi-protocol support, and includes
other features that together justify calling it a messaging platform.
Understanding your messaging platforms needs and then comparing those needs to the features
offered by Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and IBM WebSphere MQ can help you decide which is the right
technology for the right job.
RED HAT PRICE ADVANTAGE
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ subscription is over $713K less than IBM
WebSphere MQ at list price—or
just 5.7% of the IBM cost
There is a significant difference in the total cost of acquisition between Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and
IBM WebSphere MQ. Although price alone doesn’t make purchase decisions, the economic advantage Red Hat has over IBM is so significant that it shouldn’t be overlooked.
Purchasing IBM WebSphere MQ under the Passport Advantage program results in one charge
in the first year that combines license costs with subscription and support costs.4 After the first
anniversary of purchase, IBM subscription and support charges are based on your Passport
Advantage RSVP level. 5 Subscription and support costs change as your Passport Advantage
RSVP level changes.
With Red Hat JBoss Middleware, you pay an annual subscription fee and are never charged software licensing fees.
Getting started with a Red Hat subscription is very economical when compared to IBM WebSphere.
For example, compare the list price acquisition costs of IBM WebSphere MQ6 to Red Hat JBoss
A-MQ over 2-years, both deployed on 16 cores of Intel-based servers. For IBM, we use the U.S.
price in effect February 2013. The Intel cores are rated at 100 PVU7 per core. First-year IBM costs
are calculated by multiplying 16 (cores) X 100 (PVU per core) X [product price]. Second-year IBM
subscription and support is calculated at 20% of license cost.8 As shown in Table A, the list price
acquisition costs over 2-years for 16 cores of WebSphere MQ is more than $756K USD at list price.
4 CDW software licensing center web page - http://www.cdw.com/content/software-licensing/ibm.aspx
5 I BM International Passport Advantage Agreement - http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/PA_
Agreements/PA_Agreement_International_English.pdf Section 1.8 “RSVP Level.”
6 I BM WebSphere MQ pricing - https://www-112.ibm.com/software/howtobuy/buyingtools paexpress/Express?P0=E1&part_number=D55V1LL,D55V4LL,D564PLL,D571FLL,D0PJTLL,D0D6HLL,D0GGNLL,D0GGQLL,D0PLFLL,D0PKZLL,D0PLCLL,D0PKWLL,D0PJZLL,D0PJXLL,D0PK1LL,D0PJVLL,D0PKULL,D0PKSLL,D0V0VLL,D0V1DLL,D0V0XLL%20,D0V15LL%20
&catalogLocale=en_US&locale=en_US&country=USA&PT=html
7 IBM Processor Value Unit [PVU] licensing for Distributed Software http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/passportadvantage/pvu_licensing_for_customers.html
8 See page 25 of the IBM whitepaper ’Comparing IBM WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic’ for 20 percent reference ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/wsw14127usen/WSW14127USEN.PDF
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COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW Red Hat JBoss A-MQ compared with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5
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TABLE A
2-year IBM calculations using 16 cores
Cores
I BM WebSphere MQ Processor Value
Unit (PVU) license + SW subscription and
support 12 months (D55V1LL)
16
PVU p/core
Price p/PVU
100
Total
$394
$630,400
Subtotal $630,400
Total license fees $630,400
Annual subscription and support fees @ 20% of license $126,080
2-year total IBM cost $756,480
2-year IBM calculations using 64 cores
Cores
I BM WebSphere MQ Processor Value
Unit (PVU) license + SW subscription and
support 12 months (D55V1LL)
64
PVU p/core
Price p/PVU
100
Total
$394
$2,521,600
Subtotal $2,521,600
Total license fees $2,521,600
Annual subscription and support fees @ 20% of license $504,320
2-year total IBM cost $3,025,920
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ acquisition costs over 2-years are significantly lower than IBM’s, as shown
in Table B. Red Hat JBoss A-MQ can be purchased as a 1- or 3-year subscription in 16- or 64-core
increments. Red Hat recommends managed subscriptions with premium support. Using this
subscription profile, a Red Hat JBoss A-MQ subscription is over $713K less than the IBM offering
at list price (USD) over 2-years.
TABLE B
2-year Red Hat JBoss A-MQ subscription costs
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ, 16 Core
Premium, Managed
Red Hat JBoss A-MA, 64 Core
Premium, Managed
Annual Subscription
$21,600
$81,000
2-years of annual subscription
$43,200
$162,000
$713,280
$2,863,920
Savings versus IBM (USD)
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COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW Red Hat JBoss A-MQ compared with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5
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COMPARATIVE DIFFERENCES
The following subsections highlight competitive differences between Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and
IBM WebSphere MQ. Although not an exhaustive list of all differences, it does represent significant points that Red Hat commonly discusses with customers.
PRODUCT ACQUISITION
Get all the Red Hat
JBoss A-MQ functionality
from a single subscription.
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ is an easy Red Hat JBoss Middleware platform to acquire. All functionality is
contained in a single platform bundle. Managed premium support subscriptions are available in
1- and 3-year terms with either 16- or 64-cores.
This is different from IBM WebSphere MQ, which provides functionality that other IBM products
layer on top of. For example, WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition is a managed file transfer capability for MQ that allows (naturally) the transfer of files across platforms and networks. WebSphere
MQ Telemetry provides lightweight implementation of the publish and subscribe messaging model,
in order to connect with mobile devices. WebSphere MQ Advanced Message Security expands security, providing end-to-end data protection at the messaging and application level.9
IBM licensing for WebSphere MQ and related products can vary. IBM WebSphere MQ is typically licensed by PVU. However, licensing is also available by processor-day, per install, and
client.10 IBM WebSphere MQ Telemetry is licensed by PVU—unless you use the advanced client, in
which case you must also license each client. If you use multi-instance queue managers for IBM
WebSphere MQ high availability, then idle-standby licenses might be considered.11 Consult an IBM
representative to determine the what mix of products and licensing meet your needs.
DEVELOPER ACCESS TO ADDITIONAL MIDDLEWARE
Every Red Hat JBoss A-MQ
subscription provides development rights for all middleware
platforms from Red Hat.
With your Red Hat JBoss A-MQ subscription, you get development rights to all Red Hat JBoss
Middleware platforms. Specifically, for every 16 cores of a Red Hat Middleware subscription, 25
developers gain development rights for all Red Hat JBoss Middleware platforms. As a result,
developers can easily explore how Red Hat JBoss Middleware platforms, such as Red Hat JBoss
Data Grid, Red Hat JBoss BRMS, and others can compliment Red Hat JBoss A-MQ.
Unlike a Red Hat Middleware subscription, an IBM WebSphere MQ license does not entitle developers access to other IBM WebSphere products. For such access, customers must license the desired
IBM WebSphere software or use a trial copy.12 IBM WebSphere products such as WebSphere MQ are
sometimes available for download and use within the terms of a limited-time trial.13
9 WebSphere MQ Advanced Message Security web page http://www-01.ibm.com/software/integration/wmq/advanced-message-security/
1 0 See IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5 announcement letter - http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/
ssialias?infotype=AN&subtype=CA&htmlfid=897/ENUS212-091&appname=USN
11 IBM WebSphere MQ idle standby information - http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/
ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&appname=iSource&supplier=897&letternum=ENUS211-232
12 See IBM evaluation software page - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/
13 IBM WebSphere MQ evaluation license - http://www14.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/weblap/
lappl?la_formnum=&li_formnum=L-ACRR-8RZDUP&title=IBM+WebSphere+MQ+Evaluation&l=en
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COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW Red Hat JBoss A-MQ compared with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5
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WIRE PROTOCOL SUPPORT
Wire protocols define how messages are encoded while being transferred over the network.
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ supports multiple protocols that can be used either for straightforward
client-to-broker connections (transport connector) or broker-to-broker connections (network
connector). For each wire protocol, Red Hat JBoss A-MQ supports one or more associated
transport protocols.
•OpenWire — The default protocol designed to be fully-featured, JMS-compliant, and
high performance
•Stomp — Streaming Text Oriented Messaging Protocol
•REST — simple HTTP-based protocol that is also popular with mobile devices
•XMPP — Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
•VM — allows clients to connect to each other inside the Java Virtual Machine without the
overhead of network communication
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ also includes Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) 1.0 as a technical
preview. AMQP is an open Internet (or ’wire’) protocol standard for message-queuing communications supported by many institutions and technology providers.14 Because it is an open standard,
one of the project goals is to allow all AMQP clients to inter-operate with all AMQP servers.15
There are fewer out-of-the-box protocols available for use with IBM WebSphere MQ. Out of the
box, IBM WebSphere MQ allows Java programs to use JMS for reading and writing data.16 The
specification is implemented by a JMS provider, WebSphere MQ Classes for JMS. WebSphere MQ
Message Queue Interface (MQI) client is a component of the WebSphere MQ product that can be
installed on a system without a running queue manager to provide additional connectivity.17 HTTP
connectivity with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) support is also available.
Additional protocols such as MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) are available, but only if
WebSphere MQ Telemetry is also licensed. HTTP REST support can be added with the IBM
WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer product, but not with WebSphere MQ in general. IBM
WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer is also licensed separately.
CLIENT LANGUAGE ACCESS
Exchanging messages between an application client and the messaging platform is a fundamental capability. The more clients that can access your messaging platform, the better. Red Hat
JBoss A-MQ has rich out-of-the-box client access capabilities.
The default client API for Red Hat JBoss A-MQ is high-performance and JMS-compliant. It uses the
OpenWire protocol and is available for use with Java and C++. Clients built using C, C++, C#, .NET,
Delphi, Flash, Perl, PHP, Pike, and Python can interact with Red Hat JBoss A-MQ using Stomp. The
advantage of the Stomp protocol is that you can easily improvise a messaging client—even when
a specific client API is not available—because the protocol is so simple.18 For even broader client
support Representational State Transfer (REST) support is provided. REST has emerged as a predominant web service design model with vast support in languages and applications alike.
14 AMQP members website - http://www.amqp.org/about/members
15 AMQP overview web page - http://www.amqp.org/product/overview
16 Using WebSphere MQ classes for JMS documentation http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wmqv7/v7r5/topic/com.ibm.mq.doc/zd00070_.htm
17 Overview of WebSphere MQ MQI clients http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wmqv7/v7r5/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.mq.doc%2Fcs10220_.htm
1 8 A-MQ MQ Enterprise Connectivity Guide Version 7.1 page 22 http://A-MQsource.com/docs/mqent/7.1/connectivity_guide/connectivity_guide.pdf
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COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW Red Hat JBoss A-MQ compared with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5
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Out-of-the-box, IBM WebSphere MQ provides Java access using the javax.jms package (provided
via WebSphere MQ Classes for JMS) to send or receive JMS messages. Client access to IBM
WebSphere MQ using Java, .NET, COBOL, and C++ is also available via the WebSphere MQ MQI
client. However, “as of WebSphere MQ Version 7.0, enhancements to the WebSphere MQ programming interfaces will not be applied to the C++ classes”.19
WebSphere MQ Automation Classes for ActiveX (MQAX) provides Microsoft COM access. Web services can be provided using the WebSphere MQ transport for SOAP or the WebSphere MQ bridge
for HTTP to access other languages.
WRITE DATA ONCE TO REACH MULTIPLE QUEUES OR TOPICS
Both Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and IBM WebSphere MQ provide application developers the ability to
write data once and have it distributed to multiple queues or topics. Red Hat JBoss A-MQ developers use a composite destination for this. IBM WebSphere MQ developers use distribution-list
functionality. In both cases, developers must specify the queue or topic names that messages
get written to.
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ provides virtual destinations as an alternate way to accomplish this task.
The advantage to this approach is that the developer does not need to know the queue or topics
that will be written to. Instead queues and topics subscribe to the virtual destination. This allows
loose coupling of a message producers to message consumers.
ROBUST CLIENT CONNECTION AND FAIL OVER
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ clients can dynamically determine a list of brokers they can connect to using
discovery protocols. Brokers are configured using a choice of 4 different discovery agents, each
with different implementation characteristics, that allows clients to discover them. Clients use
the discovery protocol to acquire a list of available broker they can connect to. The protocol then
randomly chooses a URI from the list and attempts to establish a connection to it. If it does not
succeed, or if the connection subsequently fails, a new connection is established to one of the other
URIs in the list.
IBM WebSphere does not provide the dynamic capabilities found in Red Hat JBoss A-MQ.
Instead, IBM WebSphere MQ clients rely on a static setting found in a configuration file to
establish connections. 20
MORE MESSAGE PERSISTENCE OPTIONS
Both Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and IBM WebSphere MQ must ensure that persistent messages will
survive a broker failure and meet the once-and-only-once requirement of the JMS specification.
Both solutions support using the file system for message persistence.
Red Hat JBoss A-MQ also allows administrators to use over 11 different types of JDBC data
sources for message persistence over different types of databases. You also have the option to
use journaled and non-journaled JDBC stores. A journaled database store will perform better
than a non-journaled one and is good option for those who do not need a JDBC master/slave
failover pattern.
19 IBM WebSphere MQ using C++ documentation -
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wmqv7/v7r5/topic/com.ibm.mq.doc/zd00030_.htm
2
0 IBM WebSphere MQ configuring a client using a configuration file documentation -
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wmqv7/v7r5/topic/com.ibm.mq.doc/cs13350_.htm
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COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW Red Hat JBoss A-MQ compared with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5
6
COMPETITIVE OVERVIEW Red Hat JBoss A-MQ compared with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5
“ Based on the results
of this study, it is our
belief that Red Hat
JBoss Middleware
subscription services
should be seen as
a strategic lever to
increase benefits and
decrease costs.
VELOCITI PARTNERS, INC.
Contact your Red Hat
sales professional for
more information.
QUALITY OF SUPPORT
In October 2012, Velociti Partners released a report commissioned by Red Hat titled “JBoss
Enterprise Middleware, by Red Hat: Proven Technical Support Services Leader”21. This report
includes data from more than 360 randomly selected Red Hat support users that further validates Red Hat’s superior technical support services compared to its major competitors.
CONCLUSION
This competitive brief has presented high-level differences between Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and
IBM WebSphere MQ. More differences between the products can be found when you compare the
capabilities of both products.
The economic difference between Red Hat JBoss A-MQ and IBM WebSphere MQ is significant.
A Red Hat JBoss A-MQ 16-core premium managed subscription is more than $713K less than
the similar IBM offering at list price—or just 5.7% of the IBM cost.
You get full functionality with Red Hat JBoss A-MQ—without any associated software license
fees. With Red Hat, you simply purchase subscriptions for the technologies you use. Red Hat
JBoss A-MQ is available in 16- and 64-core entitlement increments and as annual or discounted
3-year subscriptions.
The cost savings you reap by choosing Red Hat can help you start more projects, deploy technology pervasively within your enterprise, and apply more of your budget towards innovation.
Innovate more and spend less with a Red Hat JBoss A-MQ subscription. Contact your Red Hat
sales professional for more information.
21 JBoss Enterprise Middleware, by Red Hat: Proven Technical Support Services Leader http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers/customer-satisfaction
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