What is MuleSoft and iPaaS?
Trying to define the MuleSoft platform requires us to look at it through several different lenses. There is much ground to cover when examining the Anypoint Platform because it addresses so many aspects of API Integration but at its heart is a Mule carrying the load and doing a great deal of heavy lifting.
Through a developer lens, MuleSoft is:
- A comprehensive directory of services,
- A pre-built connector,
- A building block, and
- A powerful developer portal.
It boasts a customizable, searchable public and private API directory called Anypoint Exchange. The integrated tooling with Anypoint Design Center makes the platform capable of designing, developing, and versioning API specifications using all the industry standard languages and presents them for testing using mocking services and publishing these API specifications through Exchange so other developers can find and use these building blocks.
Through an architect lens, the MuleSoft runtime engine is a platform providing deployment solutions capable of:
- microservice style API and application isolation,
- horizontal and vertical scaling,
- zero downtime deployment,
- container-based runtimes,
- on-premises and managed cloud based runtimes.
These capabilities are augmented with Anypoint API Monitoring and analytics features which share an operations lens.
Through operations lens, MuleSoft can be seen as:
- an API Security and
- API Management platform.
The platform has comprehensive management tools and universal API management capabilities to manage Service Level Agreements (SLAs), versioning, and security, and to apply policies to MuleSoft developed APIs as well as non-Mule APIs developed with other tooling running in remote environments.
The Anypoint platform is all of these things. Its performance in these areas is one of the reasons it regularly lands as a Leader in Gartner’s magic quadrant for Enterprise iPaaS solution as well as for Full Life Cycle API Management Solution.
Gartner was first to describe the term iPaaS defining it as “a suite of cloud services enabling development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications, and data within individual or across multiple organizations”. Garner glossary) As this definition suggests (cloud services), the MuleSoft Anypoint platform has been developed using an API first design approach, making all of the services highlighted above (and detailed throughout the rest of this book) available as APIs themselves.
MuleSoft is a sophisticated, powerful, dynamic, and feature rich integration platform solution providing technical architects with the tools and capabilities needed to design and deliver solutions for complex integration requirements.
This book is intended for those who need to see this platform through the architects’ lens. The MuleSoft Platform Architect’s job is to keep all these viewpoints of the platform in mind and understand how the combination and interaction of these different platform building blocks work with each other. Doing this will enable the organization to create flexible, scalable, and reusable solutions capable of driving the business vision forward through innovation and digital transformation.
