Module 2: Introducing Anypoint Platform

About

This module is an introduction to Anypoint Platform .

Objectives

• Describe the benefits of Anypoint Platform and MuleSoft’s approach to be successful with it
• Describe the role of each component in building application networks
• Navigate Anypoint Platform
• Locate APIs and other assets needed to build integrations and APIs in Anypoint

Introducing Anypoint Platform

Anypoint Platform is a unified platform consisting of all the components needed for the entire API lifecycle to:

• Design
• Build
• Deploy
• Manage

It includes tools to help create modern APIs that:

• Are productised and designed for ease of consumption using Design Center
• Discoverable and accessible through self-service using Exchange
• Easily managed for security, scalability and performance using Management Center

Anypoint Platform is the most advanced enterprise platform for designing, developing and managing APIs and integrations

• Uniquely built as a single product
• Deploy anywhere
• Wide range of use cases

The platform supports task that can be performed by

• Specialists
• Admin, Ops, DevOps
• Ad-hoc integrators
• App developers

Anypoint Platform consists of:

• Design Center - used for rapid development
• Exchange - used for collaboration, discoverablity, feedback and self-service
• Management Center - used for visibility, control, and management of different aspects of the applications
• Mule Runtime - supports all the activities and is the application server for the MuleSoft application
• Anypoint Platform allows for designing once and deployment anywhere

This includes:

• Customer hosted environments e.g.

  • On-premises
  • Private cloud
  • MuleSoft hosted Cloudhub - Fully managed iPaaS

The application has the same connectivity options regardless of where it’s hosted such as:

• Databases

• FTP, Files

• Web services

• SaaS Apps

• On-prem Apps

• Social Apps

• IoT

• Partners

The application network build through API-led connectivity makes use of the integration platform and API management

The benefits of this achitecture include

• Speed of delivery

  • Pre-built APIs, connectors and templates, automated units and integrated testing for CI/ CD

• Actionable visibility

  • Into the nodes and backend systems that each application uses to trace calls and pinpoint problems quickly
  • Actionable visibility into the application network to view dependencies and the full downstream and upstream impact of changes

• Secure by design

  • Carefully curated assets for specific user groups
  • Separate API tiers provide multiple levels of insulation, governance and control at each level

• Future-proof architecture

  • Extensible through custom connectors, which can be built within the product
  • Recompossible using APIs to create a loosely coupled architecture to isolate impact of change allowing applications to bend, not break

• Intentional self-service

  • Embedded capabilities to catalogue, discover and reuse APIs
  • To leverage digital assets across the entire organisation

Achieving success with Anypoint Platform

Topic video

The 3 aspects of the MuleSoft Catalyst approach

• Formerly known as Outcome Based Delivery (OBD)

• Customer Success - Central to 3 aspects below

• Business outcomes

  • Define outcomes with clear KPIs and align stakeholders

• Organisation enablement

  • Ensure your organisation is ready to use and adopt the Anypoint Platform in order to achieve the outcomes

• Technology delivery

  • Get up and running with Anypoint Platform and start building APIs and integrations

Catalyst has 6 Playbooks to guide best practices

• There are paths to achieve success focusing on

  • Planning
  • Establishing a foundation
  • Building and measuring the impact as you move through the process

• Business Outcomes

  • Successfully define business outcomes with KPIs and stakholder alignment

• Technology Delivery

  • Successfully achieve project success and long term success with the platform

• Organisation Enablement

  • Establish a Centre for Enablement and an internal support model
  • As well as follow a training path to ensure that your teams get the knowledge and expertise they need to successfully use the Anypoint Platform to achieve those business outcomes

• They are:

  • Business Outcomes
  • Anypoint Platform
  • Projects
  • Center for Enablement
  • Internal support
  • Training

MuleSoft has a blueprint for you to follow

It comprises of the major steps for each item of the patha

This blueprint helps organisations realise their business outcomes using Anypoint Platform

This is a high level overview of MuleSoft’s approach and how it works

Contact your MuleSoft customer support or MuleSoft engagement manager for more info

Introducing the components of Anypoint Platform

Topic video

The following details each step of the process

• Phase 1. API development cycle: API specification

  • Throughout the development cycle, there are different tools that support each phase

  • The tools help in the production of a validated API specification (RAML) through

    • Design
    • Simulate
    • Feedback
    • Validate

  • Below are the tools for the API specification phase

    
    Anypoint Platform API Specification Tools

    • API Designer

      • Used to describe the contract that provides all of the details about the

        • Operations
        • Inputs
        • Outputs

    • API Notebook

      • Can be added to the API Portal to combine documentation, with JavaScript code to demonstrate how the API can satisfy a variety of use cases

    • Exchange

      • The specification is published to Exchange
      • Which automatically creates an API portal

    • API Portal

      • Automatically created by Anypoint Exchange to be discovered by other stakeholders
      • This allows them to provide feedback

    • API Console

      • Used to interact with and simulate the API

    • Mocking Service

      • Used to interact with and simulate the API

• Phase 2. API development cycle: API implmentation

  
  API Development Cycle API Implementation

  • The RAML produced in the API development cycle: API specification phase is then taken to the next phase

  • For the API implementation, Anypoint Studio is the user-friendly IDE used to

    • Import the API specification
    • Build the MuleSoft application
  • Anypoint Studio is not the only option to create API implementations

  • MuleSoft Composer is another tool but it’s web-based, and it enables citizen integraters to create integration solutions with clicks and not code

    • It enables an integrator to easily build flows and automate integration tasks
  • The embedded MUnit framework can be used to Automate unit-testing

• Phase 3. API development cycle: API management

  
  API Development Cycle API Management

  • After the application has been built and thoroughly tested, you can move on to the final phase, API management phase

  • This phase takes you through (for the Web Service with API)

    • Deploy service
    • Create & deploy proxy
    • Secure
    • Monitor
    • Analyse
    • Troubleshoot
    • Scale
    • Respond

  • API Manager

    • Is used to create a proxy application, which is used to establish the initial version and update to new versions of the API specification
    • It’s used to govern and secure the API by creating the policies that control access and filter requests

  • API Analytics

    • Helps analyse and report how the applications are being used

  • Visualiser

    • Troubleshooting and scaling is a complex
    • Provides a real-time view of your application network and enables identification of root cause quickly

  • Runtime Manager

    • Is used to deploy and register the web service, and monitor the performance of the web service
    • Troubleshooting and scaling is a complex is another use of Runtime Manager

  • Anypoint Monitoring

    • Provides additional monitoring, which provides performance visibility into your application network through

      • Aggregated metrics
      • Data visualisation tools
      • Alerts for issues
      • Log aggregation system

• The final phase is to repeat the 3 phases to update or create new version of the API

API lifecycle: Discovery and consumption

• Through the API Lifecycle, we see how various components of Anypoint Platform are used to create specifications

• For our new consumption based IT operating model to be successful, other users need the ability to discover and self-serve APIs and other assets, for this, we have Anypoint Exchange

• Integrators can then use Anypoint Studio to build applications that can

  • Consume these APIs
  • Create API implementations

• Anypoint Platform is design to support the Production-Consumption cycle

• Anypoint Exchange

  • Is at the heart of the Production-Consumption cycle, and can consume them using Anypoint Studio
  • It allows all users to discover and self-serve these assets
  • A library of assets
  • The central repository that is cricical to the success of building an application network
  • Provides a place where assets can be published for discovery and reuse

  • Discovery is supported by strong search capabilities using either

    • Legacy mode

    • Modern/ New mode

      • Search by API specification properties
      • Ability to save searches

  • The library of assets in Exchange grows to include

    • API specifications
    • RAML fragments
    • Templates
    • Connectors
    • Any other assets that can be used to build and support your organisation’s application network

  • What does (and should) Exchange contain?

    • MuleSoft-provided public assets available in all accounts to all users

      • You can work with MuleSoft to get APIs and connectors certified and added

    • Private content only available to people in your org

      • Assets added by anyone in your organisation are added to your private Exchange

    • Your organisation should populate it to contain everything you need to build your integration projects

      • Including

        • APIs
        • Connectors
        • Diagrams
        • Videos
        • Links
        • … more

  • REST APIs and API portals in Anypoint Exchange

    • When a REST API is added to Exchange, an API portal is automatically created for it

    • An API portal has

      • Auto-generated API documentation
      • An API console for consuming and testing APIs
      • An automatically generated API endpoint that uses a mocking service to allow the API to be tested without having to implement it
    • API portals can be shared with both internal and external users

  • REST connectors in Anypoint Exchange

    • When a RAML 1.0 API specification is added to Exchange, a connector is automatically created for it

      • The connector can be used in Mule applications to make calls to that API
      • REST Connect is the name of the technology that performs this conversion

  • Using Exchange: Success of C4E in action

    
    Using Exchange Success of C4E in Action

    • Central IT creates and publishes API templates to Exchange
    • The rest of the teams consume and create their own projects, which allow them to also publish assets to Exchange

Building integration applications and APIs with Design Center

Topic video

Design Center includes two applications

• API Designer

  • Purpose: Web app for designing, documenting, and mocking APIs
  • Launched from Design Center
  • This tool allows you to create API specifications and API fragments using either the RAML or OAS specification languages

• Anypoint Studio

  • Purpose: Desktop IDE for implementing APIs and building integration applications

Creating Mule applications with Anypoint Studio

• Mule applications can be created using Anypoint Studio

  • Studio creates XML code visually by adding comnponents and processors to flows

    • The XML can also be manually edited or created
  • You can use connectors and other assets from Exchange
  • Other tools can be used to write code (primarily XML) to create applications

• Under the hood, Mule applications are Java applications using Spring framework

Introducing Mule Runtime

Topic video

Mule is the runtime engine of Anypoint Platform

• A lightweight integration and automation platform that allows developers to connect apps together quickly and easily, enabling them to exchange data

  • Acts as a transit system for carrying data between apps (the Mule)
  • Can connect all systems including web services, JMS, JDBC, HTTP etc

• Decouples point-to-point integrations by having all (non-Mule) apps talk to a Mule runtime instead of directly to each other

• Enforces policies for API governance

• Can be deployed anywhere, can integrate and orchestrate events in real time or in batch, and has universal connectivity

  • On-premises & Private Cloud
  • Hybrid
  • Hosted by MuleSoft (CloudHub)

Mule applications are designed to run a on Mule

• Mule applications are created by integration developers to tie together various subsystems

• These applications are deployed to a Mule Runtime which enables them to consume inboud data in a predefined Mule message format

• The applications transform and route Mule messages in paths called flows and in stages called components or processors

• Mule finally delivers the transformed data to a recipient or destination

• Mule applications can be deployed to anywhere a Mule Runtime is hosted

  • Mule runtimes can be a MuleSoft-hosted in the cloud (Cloudhub), private-hosted in the cloud, on-premises, or a hybrid

Summary

Anypoint Platform

Anypoint Platform is a unfied, hybrid integration platform that creates a seamless application network of apps, data, and devices with API-led connectivity

Allows you to design once, and deploy anywhere

Design Center

Offers two applications

• API Designer - to build API specifications

• Anypoint Studio - to build Mule applications

Anypoint Exchange

Used as a central repository for assets so they can be discovered and reused

• Populate it with everything you need to build your integration projects

Mule runtimes can be MuleSoft-hosted in the cloud (CloudHub) or customer-hosted in the cloud or on-prem

Mule applications are designed to be deployed on Mule Runtime

Testing your knowledge

What is NOT one of the benefits of a layered API-led architecture?

Cutomized problem-solving

What is the MuleSoft-hosted runtime environment called?

CloudHub

What asset can NOT be created using Design Center?

API Portals

Which of the following is true about Mule applications?

Deployment is possible to anywhere a Mule Runtime is hosted

What MuleSoft product enables publishing, sharing, and search of APIs?

Anypoint Exchange

Anki

Links

• Anypoint Platform Development: Fundamentals - Notes - Part 1: Getting started with Anypoint Platform
• Module 1: Introducing application networks and API-led connectivity
• Module 3: Designing APIs

References