What is MuleSoft Anypoint Platform?

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We've put together some frequently asked questions about MuleSoft and its differentiation, Anypoint integration platform, APIs and vCores, subscription model and licensing. The goal of this Q&A page is to provide a jargon-free overview and explain MuleSoft concepts in plain English.

Various MuleSoft's terms and concepts

What is an API

An API is a piece of code that creates an access point to an application or a system. It's an intermediary that accepts requests from the outside, securely passes them to the system and then communicates the response back. The system remains a black box. The advantage - no need to know how the system works and processes requests, moreover, the system can be replaced entirely but the request-response chain will continue working perfectly well as long as the API knows how to 'talk' to the new system.

How does MuleSoft work?

MuleSoft offers numerous pre-built APIs for all types of applications and systems. By placing an API in front of your old legacy systems, you immediately acquire a modern way to interact with this system without knowing how it operates. If all your on-premise or cloud systems have an intermediary API, called System APIs, that can understand the modern system's language, then they can communicate by exchanging data. All MuleSoft APIs are organised in the network and are assigned different roles. More complex Process APIs are responsible for processing the extracted data and performing some logic, while Experience APIs deal with formatting the data to be presented to different media devices like desktops, mobiles, apps etc. The Anypoint platform is unique in its ability not only to manage and orchestrate API-led integration but also to develop and execute APIs.

Mule ESB (Enterprise Service Bus)

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is fundamentally an architecture. It is a set of rules and principles for integrating numerous applications over a bus-like infrastructure. The core concept of the ESB architecture is connecting different applications by putting a communication bus between them and then enable each application to talk to this bus. This approach decouples systems, allowing them to communicate without dependency on or knowledge of other participants.

Mule, the runtime engine of Anypoint Platform, is a flexible ESB solution that helps to increase agility by implementing a simple, well defined, "pluggable" system that scales well.

Orchestration and flows

Orchestration is required when there is a need to combine existing services to meet business requirements. It involves decoupling point-to-point integration in favour of chains of operations that can be reused or modified as systems or business needs change.

Flows enable new ways to orchestrate service mediation. For example, you can combine an arbitrary number of sources, routers, and components that work together to achieve implementation requirements. Flows enable you to orchestrate new forms of data movement based on flow-specific routers. Orchestration allows you to create and reuse flows and component chains, chain together multiple components in one flow, and integrate sources or connectors anywhere in a flow.

Difference between On-premise and CloudHub deployment?

Anypoint Platform is the same product whether a customer uses Cloudhub or installs on their private Cloud. Note though that the Anypoint Platform Private Cloud Edition (PCE) set up is typically 6 months behind in terms of product releases.

The two key parts of the product, Control and Runtime Plane, are in different locations depending on the chose deployment option. The Control Plane can only be customer-managed when opting for a PCE deployment model.

What is the difference between Mule ESB Enterprise Edition and Anypoint Platform?

Mule, a lightweight Java-based enterprise service bus (ESB), represents the Mule Runtime itself and so is just referring to 1 component of Anypoint Platform. The Anypoint Platform also includes the Design center, Management center and Anypoint Exchange.

What is MuleSoft zero downtime deployment?

CloudHub is responsible for keeping your application up-to-date, so API users experience zero downtime. During your application update, CloudHub keeps both the old version and the new version of your application running. Your domain points to the old version of your application until the new version is complete and fully started. This approach ensures no disruption to users as all requests are serviced from the old application while the new version is starting.

Because CloudHub is an integration platform as a service (iPaaS), MuleSoft manages the operating system and Mule runtime engine patching. CloudHub applies security patches as needed to ensure that your application is secure and, once per month, it updates Mule to maintain the stability of your application with zero downtime.

How do I secure APIs and integration in MuleSoft?

Anypoint Security is responsible for defending your APIs and integrations. MuleSoft takes security very seriously. A layered approach to protection ensures tight access control on a lower level of individual APIs while enforcing global policies and defending from external attacks.

What is MuleSoft Anypoint studio?

4 deployment options

Considering these 2 discreet parts (Control and Runtime planes) of the platform, we can now explore the deployment options:

What makes MuleSoft stand out from the crowd

What is MuleSoft GraphQL integration?

GraphQL is often compared with REST, the most popular approach for designing APIs. GraphQL is a query language for APIs created by Facebook in 2012. APIs that provide a GraphQL interface are called GraphQL APIs. Is GraphQL better than REST? There are loads of online articles arguing which is superior and more effective. Keep in mind that the main difference is that REST is an architectural style, a concept, while GraphQL is a language that specifies how to request data from a remote server.

In spring 2021, MuleSoft added DataGraph capability to the Anypoint Platform. Applications often operate with a vast amount of data from different sources. Front-end developers must overcome the challenge of extracting and processing information stored in various formats while serving it without delay. GraphQL UI was designed to solve this problem. It offers an additional layer that exposes a single end-point, hiding the complexity of accessing diverse data sources to serve your requests. This approach is very much aligned with the API-led connectivity principles. Undoubtedly, bringing back all required information from multiple APIs in a single call and without additional code is a great advantage! GraphQL also solves REST's over-fetching and under-fetching problems - due to its inflexibility, REST always returns a predefined set of data regardless of your exact requirements. Read more about how to use GraphQL to consume your REST APIs faster with DataGraph.

What does MuleSoft Composer enable you to do?

Not a big fan of coding? Then MuleSoft Composer is for you. The tool was developed for SaaS admins, business analysts, marketers, salespeople, and team leaders. The Composer enables non-programmers to quickly and easily build flows to connect data sources and automate integration tasks without writing a single line of code. Previously MuleSoft Composer was only available with Salesforce; now, it comes as a standalone version. MuleSoft Composer and Composer for Salesforce share the same core functionality and provide a seamless user experience to help build integrations with 'clicks, not code'.

Investing in Salesforce and Anypoint Platform is a serious financial commitment. Therefore, it might not be the right choice for small businesses or start-ups making their first step into the integration space. MuleSoft Composer, on the other hand, is easy to operate and can help solve various integration challenges with only a few clicks. MuleSoft Composer is designed and built with accessibility in mind and provides contextual in-app help every step of the way.

To automate a process with Composer, you have to build a flow. A flow is a sequence of steps that mimic the process. 

• Extract data from a system such as Google Sheets, Tableau, Workday, or a Salesforce org based on a specific event or schedule.
• Perform actions on the data, like filtering and routing data through a flow based on conditions.
• Synchronise the data across one or multiple target systems.

One of the MuleSoft Composer's advantages is its several ready-to-use connectors. A wide range of adaptors enables integrations with various systems, including Salesforce, NetSuite, Stripe, Workday, Slack, Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams, ServiceNow, and Jira. MuleSoft develops and releases new connectors all the time so that you can quickly satisfy business requirements.

Imagine a Sales team that creates and maintains sales data in Salesforce and information about orders in NetSuite. Whenever an opportunity changes status to Closed Won in Salesforce, the team must manually generate an associated sales order in NetSuite. Then, they must notify the sales channel about that order using the Slack channel. In this scenario, the salesman must access and manually update various systems. Using MuleSoft Composer, an admin can easily automate the process by creating a single flow. The flow will contain a step that automatically generates a new order in NetSuite when an opportunity is flagged as Closed Won in Salesforce. The next step will be to notify the sales channel in Slack. Thanks to the Composer, everything will be happening in near real-time. 

Anyone can automate processes and connect systems using just clicks. You never have to write code again! 

What's MuleSoft Universal API Manager (UAPIM)?

You might already have some internally developed or supplied by your SaaS providers' APIs running on a cloud platform like AWS or Azure. Many of you use an API managing tool to build applications on microservices architectures. With multiple APIs scatted all over the organisation, you might come to the point when reinforcing standard security, regulations, and compliance becomes almost impossible. Furthermore, teams have a hard time finding APIs for reuse leading to duplication of effort, not to mention challenges managing these APIs from multiple management consoles.

Source: ' Understanding Universal API Management and Anypoint Flex Gateway'

MuleSoft has recently launched Universal API Management (UAPIM). Its capabilities include Flex Gateway, API Manager, API Governance and Experience Hub. Regardless of their origins or where they're physically running, APIs can now be catalogued and managed under one roof. API Management creates a single source of truth for your organisation's integrations and enforces industry compliance and company standards to secure your microservices and APIs. The digital marketplace makes your APIs searchable and consumable while allowing you to stay in control and monitor their use.