What Is MuleSoft?

 MuleSoft is a vendor that provides an integration platform to help businesses connect applications, data and devices across on-premise and cloud computing environments. Based in San Francisco, the company was founded in 2006. know more at Mulesoft online training

According to the company’s website, the name MuleSoft derives from the platform’s ability to reduce and ease integration, conventionally considered “donkey work.”

Additionally, because mules are a hybrid combination of donkeys and horses, the company chose the name to reflect its platform’s hybrid capabilities.

What is Mulesoft Technology

MuleSoft makes it easy to unify data to deliver a single view of the customer, automate business processes, and build connected experiences.

The company’s integration platform, called Anypoint Platform, includes various tools to develop, manage and test application programming interfaces ) which support these connections.

By using a modern API-led approach, each integration becomes a reusable building block. This process that optimizes a reusable process enables organizations to accelerate IT delivery, increase organizational agility, and deliver innovation at scale.

Components of Mulesoft

1. Anypoint Design Center

Anypoint Design Center provides a syntax-based Web ecosystem for designing and documenting APIs. It provides different development instruments that make it simple to construct connectors, display integration flows, and design APIs. The Design Center enables:

• Rapid API design
• Connecting with any framework
• Mapping of data
• Testing and deployment of applications
• Real-time collaborative prototyping
• Easy integration

2. Anypoint Management Center

Anypoint Management Center is a web interface to manage SLAs, API clients, underlying integration flows, and traffic etc. and numerous others. It gives a centralized control and visibility of deployed APIs and applications. Features include: know more at Mulesoft  training

• Mapping and organizing APIs and dependencies
• Proactive performance monitoring
• Personalized monitoring
• Rapid troubleshooting
• Scale and high availability

3. Anypoint Exchange

Anypoint Exchange serves as a collaborative hub to search and utilize the pre-built open and private reusable resources.  It is essentially a library for API providers, through which it’s possible to share assets, templates, and APIs.

4. Mule Runtime Engine

The Mule Runtime Engine combines real-time application orchestration/integration with robust data integration capabilities. It is the only available runtime that combines application and data integration with SaaS applications, legacy systems, and APIs. Features include

• sStream and handle data automatically
• Map and transform any kind of data and format
• Highly scalable and extensible architecture
• Extend Mule anywhere
• Flexible and highly available performance

5. Anypoint Connectors

Anypoint Connectors offer many tools and ready-to-use resources for faster connectivity. With the help of Anypoint connectors, you can easily connect the pre-configured connectors to your desired terminal and also create your own reusable connector using the Anypoint Connector DevKit software.

6. Mule Runtime Services

Mule Runtime Services can be referred to as a complete suite of platform services offering reliability, scalability, enterprise-grade security, and high availability. Its Runtime Engine, Runtime Manager, and Runtime Fabric platforms work in tandem to connect, manage, monitor, and deploy APIs and applications.

Leveraging the Power of Salesforce and Mulesoft

The combined power of MuleSoft, the #1 integration platform, and  enable customers to scale their businesses and accelerate digital transformation.

Together, MuleSoft and Salesforce give companies the ability to unlock data across systems, develop scalable integration framework, and ultimately create differentiated, connected experiences at a rapid pace. know more at Mulesoft online training from India

From developing integrated applications with Lightning Platform and Heroku, achieving a single customer view in Sales and Service Cloud, or connecting the Salesforce 360 with legacy sources to synchronize customer info, the possibilities and benefits are endless.

Here are key benefits of using Salesforce with MuleSoft.

Lowest friction: The platform allows quickly creating and modifying application network through user-friendly low-code and pro-code tools and open standards, as well as pre-built templates, APIs, connectors and reusable building blocks.

Undivided connectivity: Seamlessly connect data, apps and almost any other gadget both in the cloud and on-premises.

Future-proof: The flexible architecture allows for innovation and changes as a business continues to evolve while using a wide array of technologies that fits enterprises of all shapes and sizes.

How Does MuleSoft Achieve This?

Before we answer this question, let us first understand what middleware is, what iPaaS is, and how MuleSoft is the best of both worlds.

Middleware: Middleware technologies aim to eliminate the pain of integration by creating a communication layer between two systems – like a semi-permeable membrane with the bidirectional flow. Middleware provides a centralized platform for interaction between legacy systems and SaaS – a place that allows easy retrieval and storage of data. 

MuleSoft’s Mule Enterprise Service Bus is a Java-based middleware solution that is reliable and easy to scale. It works with the Anytime Platform to perform any of the functions that middleware is supposed to. Mule ESB can also do more by connecting to the Anypoint Platform and help companies build Service Oriented Architecture, which opens the door to higher possibilities.

iPaaS: Integration Platform as a Service, iPaas is a platform that allows building and deploying integration within the cloud and between the cloud and the enterprise. PaaS eliminates the need for middleware as it allows users to deploy on-premises or on-cloud applications and build integration flows on the cloud itself.

The latest news by Gartner points towards the potential of iPaas as a platform that can encourage the buying, selling, and exchange of integration flows (both out-of-the-box and custom-built patterns) between users, service providers, and integration providers MuleSoft’s ESB integration with CloudHub gives the middleware solution to unequivocal iPaaS capabilities.  So, how does MuleSoft achieve this? MuleSoft recommends that APIs be organized into three categories:

1. System APIs: System APIs handle greeting and expose data from core assets without allowing users to change the base. 
2. Process APIs: Process APIs are allowed to shape data to suit business needs and processes. They help make data more consumable. These APIs may be the data analytics expert’s best friend. 
3. Experience APIs: These APIs are UI/UX oriented and are all about how the audience consumes data on apps and devices. These APIs are likely required to be reusable to enable faster deployments.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform gives the organization the suite needed to create these different types of APIs to lock/unlock data, compose data, and restructure data without compromising uptime.

The Development Lifecycle on Anypoint Platform

The Anypoint Platform is a combination of 5 components:

1. Anypoint Design Center: This component provides tools to design, document, and test APIs in a web-based graphical environment. The toolset includes API Designer, Studio, and Flow Designer. Users can build integrations and implement APIs in low-code environments, create data transformation with drag-and-drop interface or code, and test integrations manually, automatically, or within CI/CD.
2. Anypoint Management Center: This component is what you’ll need once the tests are passed and the code needs to go into the production phase. The Management Center guides you through deployment, management, and monitoring of APIs and integration in the cloud or on-premises. It connects with Customer 360 service as managers can track key metrics like API usage, transactions by region, and performance with prebuilt or custom dashboards.
3. Anypoint Exchange: Okay now that you have your API in production, it doesn’t end here. You can choose to contribute your work on Anypoint Exchange, much like Salesforce AppExchange. You can also store connectors, templates, examples, API definitions, even API fragments in a privately shared space. What’s more – developers can access public records to see if they can reuse/recycle available code to foster fast deployments.
4. Mule: Mule is the underlying engine; the processor that puts all the above components together.
5. Runtime services: The runtime services support auxiliary functions like temporary data storage and message queuing.

The best part about Anypoint is that its systems are based on a typical development cycle. There is no interruption at any level and fits very well into the CI/CD Pipeline.

Understanding the Need for MuleSoft:

MuleSoft is a funny-sounding name, right? Here’s what the company has to say – The "mule" in our name comes from the drudgery, or "donkey work," of data integration that our platform was created to escape. Also, like a mule, we deliver the strength of a donkey to haul the heavy workload, and the speed of a racehorse to get it done quickly. 

IT project demands are increasing at a rate of 32%. Enterprise technology is at an all-time high with an average number of applications that organizations running up to 900! Out of these 900, a measly 23% of applications are able to talk to each other. Integrations have become a messy business in a world where digital transformation is now no longer a choice, but a necessity. Industrial Revolution 4 has brought with it IoT, AI, cloud computing, blockchain, SaaS, ML, and the list goes on. With everything happening all at once, taking care of core systems without compromising security is key in staying ahead of the competition.

A recent study found that nearly 70% of IT’s time is dedicated to keeping the lights on rather than spending it on innovation. With so much downtime, where is the question of fast-deployments and quick ROI? MuleSoft could possibly be the signifier of The Little Engine That Could – a lesson that every company undergoing a digital transformation now needs. know more at Mulesoft online course

MuleSoft Certification

As companies continue to ramp up the digital transformation game, specialists who can handle the tasks well will grow in demand. If you think you or your company can benefit from MuleSoft you can take up certification courses offered online. Here’s everything you need to know: