A Year to Celebrate: 2024 Highlights for IBM Sterling Data Exchange Software!
We're thrilled to look back on an amazing year for IBM Sterling Data Exchange! Our team is grateful for the incredible community of talented individuals who have built their data exchange networks with us. Thank you for making our accomplishments possible and for being part of this vibrant community!
- 500+ Sterling Data Exchange clients joined us at our regional user groups or at out TechXchange conference
- 200+ Business Partners participated, sharing their expertise and insights
We're excited to see many of you again in 2025! Mark your calendars for more opportunities to connect, learn, and grow with us.
Exclusive Invitation: Virtual Customer Advisory Council - February 20
We invite our existing IBM Sterling customers to join our next Virtual Customer Advisory Council on February 20, 2025!
Sign up for our Experience Research Program, which allows you to participate in different IBM UX research studies including the customer advisory council. We value your input and look forward to hearing your thoughts on how we can continue to improve and innovate.
2024 Recap
Here’s a recap of some of the most significant enhancements we launched in the last year.
B2B Integration Enhancements
- Unlock Real-Time Execution with BPaaS in Sterling B2B Integrator!
BPaaS (Business Process as a Service) capability is now an integral part of Sterling B2B Integrator (for both traditional IIM and containers deployment). This powerful feature empowers customers to expose business processes via RESTful APIs, enabling real-time execution and a significant boost in efficiency.
Say Goodbye to Queue-Based Delays! With BPaaS, you can:
- Accept a wide range of payloads, including JSON and EDI
- Run all business process steps on the same thread as the caller thread
What Does This Mean for You? With BPaaS in Sterling B2B Integrator, you can enhance your business agility and responsiveness, improve your ability to adapt to changing market conditions, and unlock new opportunities for growth and innovation.
- Partner Onboarding Improvements
A trio of enhancements take Sterling Partner Engagement Manager to the next level, with much more to come in 2025. With the addition of an Engagement Admin role, you'll enjoy more control over user permissions and access. Plus, support for PODMAN gives you greater deployment flexibility. And, with our improved user experience updates, self-serve onboarding is now simpler and more streamlined than ever.
- Improved monitoring of connections, ciphers, and certificates
Sterling Control Center Monitor now delivers unparalleled visibility into your transactions and configuration changes and significantly improves the monitoring and reporting of Sterling Secure Proxy (SSP), by capturing the transactions going through the forward and reverse proxy. New built-in reports include:
- Failed Login Attempts - report of failed login attempts from SSP
- Partners Connecting with Ciphers - report of partners connecting with the cipher they are using with SSP
- Virus Scan Report Summary - report of failing virus scans for SSP
- Certificates Expiry Report Summary - report of SSP certificates and expiry dates
- Brute Force Attack Report - report of SSP failed system connections attempts
- Improved visibility and alerts management
Sterling Control Center Monitor now has improved visibility of critical alerts via providing the ability to issue a single alert when an event occurs for a specified number of times in a specified time period.
- Better support for application rollbacks
New Emergency Restore on Sterling Connect:Direct Windows provides a rollback feature that will help customers ensure a seamless plan to reverse directions if complexities arise during an upgrade.
- IBM Sterling Transformation Extender
Release of v11.0.1 which introduced several significant enhancements:
- IBM Java 17 Semeru Integration
The product now operates on IBM Java 17 Semeru, ensuring improved performance, stability and security enhancements. IBM Semeru id sn OpenJDK-based Java runtime designed for enterprise applications, optimized for cloud-native environments. The move to Java 17 positions ITX to better handle modern integraton demands by leveraging a more efficient and secure runtime environment. This upgrade also future-proofs ITX deployments by aligning with IBM’s long-term support roadmap and broader industry standards.
- Adapter Enhancements
The 11.0.1 release introduced several key adapter enhancements, including the addition of Redis , MQ and Oracle Adapters. Together these enhancements strealine data flow management by enabling faster database operations, optimizing message processing, and providing seamless access to in-memory data structures. These adapter improvements boost overall performance, scalibility, and flexibility allowing organizations to better handle complex, high-volume data integration scenarios with increased efficiency and reduced processing time. Check out the series of training videos for additional details.
Managed File Transfer Enhancements
- Simplified login experience
Sterling File Gateway now supports email addresses as UserIDs, making login a breeze. When combined with our Single Sign-On (SSO) features, you can access all products with a single email-based login, streamlining account management across the platform.
- Customized branding
MyFileGateway 2.0 introduces enhanced branding capabilities, allowing you to customize themes and logos to reflect your company's unique identity. This update removes IBM branding, delivering a tailored and cohesive experience that's all about you. With these updates, you'll enjoy a more seamless, personalized, and efficient experience.
- Enhanced Security
Sterling Connect:Direct has new advanced security features to ensure the secure transfer of your files. You'll now enjoy Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for C:D Unix, adding an extra layer of protection with OTP and support for any SAML 2.0 Identity Provider. Surrogate sign on support for z/OS is available, allowing users to sign on to DMBATCH without requiring a password in plaintext. These updates will give you peace of mind, regulatory compliance, and protection for your sensitive information.
- Increased Performance and Scalability
There were significant enhancements take Sterling Connect:Direct to the next level. You'll now enjoy Effortless Scaling with horizontal autoscaling for CD Unix containers that automatically adjusts resources to handle surges in file loads, ensuring optimal performance and cost savings. Additionally, Faster File Transfers with wildcard copy of PDS members from z/OS to distributed platforms (Unix and Windows) enables efficient batch file transfers, saving you time and effort.
- High-Speed Add-On
Native FASP support been added to Sterling Connect:Direct to expand its capabilities. IBM High Speed Add On (HSAO) 2.0 for Connect:Direct delivers updated Fast Adaptive and Secure Protocol (FASP) support based on IBM Aspera faspio Gateway. The add on supports multiple platforms including Sterling Connect:Direct UNIX (IBM AIX and Linux x86 or x64), Sterling Connect:Direct Windows, and Sterling Connect:Direct z/OS.
- Secure Outbound File Transfers
Outbound file transfers are now supported through the Sterling Secure Proxy for the SFTP protocol. This means that administrators can now configure authentication and authorization for outbound file transfers, enhancing the overall security and control over file transfers. And, SSP now comes with Data Loss Prevention capability, which helps ensure that no sensitive or confidential data leaves the organization. This feature scans any outgoing files with a DLP scanning engine and ensures that only the allowed information is transmitted, thereby preventing potential data breaches.
- Improved User Experience
Sterling Secure Proxy received upgraded Web-based UI, improving the overall look and feel of screens and making it easier for administrators and users to navigate the platform. Support for Multifactor Authentication in Configuration Manager was also added, giving administrators an extra layer of protection, helping to ensure that only authorized users can access the core of Sterling Secure Proxy.
IBM Named a Leader in B2B Middleware by IDC MarketScape!
We're thrilled to announce that IBM has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Business-to-Business Middleware 2024 Vendor Assessment! This prestigious recognition is a testament to our commitment to delivering innovative and effective B2B middleware solutions.
Read the Report Excerpt Now!
Get the inside scoop on what sets IBM apart. Check out the report excerpt from IDC! We're proud to be a leader in the B2B middleware space and look forward to continuing to help our customers achieve their business goals in the coming year.
In you have any questions or want to discuss how to activate any of the above capabilities for your organization, please contact us to arrange a time to meet.
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