What is Mule ESB?

Mule, the runtime engine of Anypoint Platform, is a lightweight Java-based enterprise service bus (ESB) and integration platform that allows developers to connect applications together quickly and easily, enabling them to exchange data. It enables easy integration of existing systems, regardless of the different technologies that the applications use, including JMS, Web Services, JDBC, HTTP, and more. The Mulesoft ESBcan be deployed anywhere, can integrate and orchestrate events in real time or in batch, and has universal connectivity.

The key advantage of an ESB is that it allows different applications to communicate with each other by acting as a transit system for carrying data between applications within your enterprise or across the Internet. Mule has powerful capabilities that include:

·  Service creation and hosting — expose and host reusable services, using the ESB as a lightweight service container

·  Service mediation — shield services from message formats and protocols, separate business logic from messaging, and enable location-independent service calls

·  Message routing — route, filter, aggregate, and re-sequence messages based on content and rules

·  Data transformation — exchange data across varying formats and transport protocols

Why Mule?

Mule is lightweight but highly Flexible, allowing you to start small and connect more applications over time. The ESB manages all the interactions between applications and components transparently, regardless of whether they exist in the same virtual machine or over the Internet, and regardless of the underlying transport protocol used.

There are currently several commercial ESB implementations on the market. However, many of these provide limited functionality or are built on top of an existing application server or messaging server, locking you into that specific vendor. Mule is vendor-neutral, so different vendor implementations can plug in to it. You are never locked in to a specific vendor when you use Mule.

Mule provides many advantages over competitors, including:

·  Mule components can be any type you want. You can easily integrate anything from a "plain old Java object" (POJO) to a component from another framework.

·  Mule and the ESB model enable significant component reuse. Unlike other frameworks, Mule allows you to use your existing components without any changes. Components do not require any Mule-specific code to run in Mule, and there is no programmatic API required. The business logic is kept completely separate from the messaging logic.

·  Messages can be in any format from SOAP to binary image files. Mule does not force any design constraints on the architect, such as XML messaging or WSDL service contracts.

·  You can deploy Mule in a variety of topologies, not just ESB. Because it is lightweight and embeddable, Mule can dramatically decrease time to market and increases productivity for projects to provide secure, scalable applications that are adaptive to change and can scale up or down as needed.

·  Mule's stage event-driven architecture (SEDA) makes it highly scalable. A major financial services company processes billions of transactions per day with Mule across thousands of Mule servers in a highly distributed environment.

Mule Enterprise

There are two editions of Mule: Community and Enterprise. Enterprise is the enterprise-class version of the ESB, with additional features and capabilities that are ideal for production deployments of Mule that have requirements for performance, HA, resiliency, or technical support. Mule Community and Enterprise are built on a common codebase, so it is easy to upgrade from Community to Enterprise. Learn more about Mule as an ESB Community vs. Mule ESB Enterprise.

• Anypoint Design Center – Development tools that make it easy to design APIs, implement integration flows, and build connectors
• Anypoint Management Center – A unified Web interface for managing all aspects of the platform, including API users, traffic, SLAs, underlying integration flows, and more
• Anypoint Exchange – A collaboration hub for searching for prebuilt, private and public reusable assets
• Mule Runtime Engine – Combines real-time application integration and orchestration with robust data integration capabilities
• Anypoint Connectors – Provides out-of-the-box assets and tools you need to connect faster and tools to develop your own
• Runtime Services – A comprehensive suite of platform services that provide enterprise-grade security, reliability, scalability, and high-availability

Key capabilities of the platform include:

• APIs
• Build new APIs quickly, design new interfaces for your existing APIs, and simplify API management
• Rapidly expose valuable data to mobile devices, web apps, and connected devices in a secure and controlled way
• Enable and empower the entire organization with Experience APIs, Process APIs, and System APIs
• B2B
• Modernize B2B by extending Mulesoft’s API-led connectivity approach to B2B and EDI
• Build reusable services across multiple trading partners and B2B processes
• Data Integration
• Combines batch and real-time processing for unified application and data integration
• Offers a template-driven approach to development
• DevOps
• Streamlines adoption of popular DevOps frameworks for continuous integration and efficient deployment
• ESB
• Combines the power of data and application integration across legacy systems and SaaS applications, with a seamless path to benefitting from other capabilities in the Anypoint platform and API-led connectivity
• Quickly build integrations ranging from simple to advanced with pre-built connectors and templates,
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Connect and orchestrate data from your enterprise and the cloud to devices at the edge of your network—including point of sale systems, medical devices, sensors, and more—using open standards, developer-friendly tools, and out-of-the-box transport protocols.
• Microservices
• Enables your organization to develop new solutions in a manageable, resusable, and governed way
• Mobile
• Enables fast, easy, and governed mobile access to any data from backend systems, legacy databases, and SaaS Applications

Anypoint Platform Benefits

• Unlock legacy systems, rapidly connect legacy assets to SaaS technologies, and reduce integration costs—without disrupting existing business processes
• Increase developer productivity and shrink development times through open technologies that promote reusability, modularity and collaboration
• Reduce time to resolution by handling all resources from a single pane of glass
• Increase innovation and value making across the enterprise through tools that enable faster development, testing, and implementation of APIs
• Increase agility with a flexible architecture that evolves as your business does
• Create happier customers and competitive advantages by delivering services and experiences