Mulesoft Architecture

MuleSoft offers the most prevalent integration platform to connect SaaS & enterprise applications in both on-premise and cloud. In the year 2018, Salesforce acquired MuleSoft to improve customer’s digital transformations. 

The integration platform of MuleSoft allows you to unlock data across a variety of systems, devices and cloud apps. Along with that, you can also make faster and smarter decisions while offering an extremely connected experience to end-users. 

In this post, let’s find out more about MuleSoft architecture and understand how it works. 

What is MuleSoft Architecture?

The approach of MuleSoft to integration of data from varying systems through layers of APIs lets you spend less time on IT projects and more on the primary business. Whenever you convert a specific business process into an API, you make it extremely seamless to integrate the same process in the upcoming project.

And this way, APIs prove out to be best as reusable codes. With MuleSoft architecture, you can develop a structured application network that easily connects data, applications and devices with these reusable APIs. 

Processors in the Flow

Processors are divided into varying functional categories. Some of these categories are processing blocks that contain a myriad of processors themselves. However, you must keep in mind that not all of the processors can acquire all the positions in a flow.

Most of the time, the processor’s position, pertaining to the rest of the flow, extensively impacts the processor’s behavior and how much it has to be configured. 

API-led Connectivity

API-led connectivity is one of the methodical ways to connect applications to data through purposeful and reusable APIs. Such APIs are created to play a certain role, be it delivering an experience, composing data into varying processes, or unlocking data from systems. 

When the organization adopts API-led connectivity, everybody gets empowered to access their superior capabilities when it comes to delivering projects and applications through reuse, self-service and discovery.

Along with depending upon three varying categories of reusable APIs to create new capabilities and services, API-led connectivity also democratizes and decentralizes access to the enterprise data. While producing reusable assets, central IT unlocks major systems, such as SaaS apps, data sources, and legacy applications. 

Exchange Patterns

Several anypoint connectors are endpoint-based. In simple words, they work either as inbound endpoints or outbound endpoints to establish a communication over any of the universally recognized protocols, be it SMTP, HTTP, or FTP. 

Also, inbound and outbound endpoints can establish a request-response or one-way exchange pattern. When an inbound connector that is endpoint-based, such as VM or HTTP gets configured for a request-response exchange pattern, it seamlessly turns into a hybrid inbound-outbound endpoint.

On the other hand, when outbound endpoints get configured with request-response exchange patterns, they begin exchanging data with resources that are outside of the flow. 

Processing Strategies

A processing strategy comprehends how MuleSoft executes the sequence of message processors in an application. For instance, when the source of a message is configured with a request-response exchange pattern, MuleSoft sets the processing strategy to synchronous. This means the flow is executed on one process thread; therefore, making sure that the message processors’ sequence is executed adequately and the client gets an expected response.

On the contrary, whenever the flow gets configured for a one-way exchange pattern, MuleSoft sets this strategy to queued asynchronously, which has the capability to improve the flow throughput. Under this strategy, the inbound endpoint puts the incoming message into the queue instantly as it is received. And then, the receiver thread is closed. 

Flow Architecture

The MuleSoft flows are highly flexible. Thus, you get to combine processors in several ways. Often, this could be to accomplish the same result. However, for several use cases,  specific message processors fall into loosely organized patterns. 

For instance, suppose you wish to develop an app that receives product catalog requests from the web page and then sends a catalog’s PDF to the client who had submitted the request. Additionally, you wish this flow to record the information of the client's customer to log and record the transaction. 

Your flow may look something like this:

Conclusion

If your organization has specific cultures and structures, you must acquire an unbiased view of the MuleSoft architecture. This way, you can develop apps with precise flow and achieve anticipated results. Now that you know essential factors regarding the MuleSoft architecture, implement it in your business today.