Mulesoft and its place in the market?

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Aaroona

3194 posts

Uber Geek

#165758 19-Feb-2015 19:13

I'm looking at the mulesoft software, and to be honest, it looks pretty promising.

It's built around opensource software, and appears to be quite a solid product, however, I don't see a lot (read, next to none) of jobs/places asking for this type of experience.

I guess what I'm wanting to know is;

1. Have you worked with this product before;
2. How established is it? How many places do you know that work with it?

For those that don't know, mulesoft is an integration platform for applications, certainly worth a gander for a bit of light reading :)

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1242716 20-Feb-2015 00:26

What are you thinking of using it for?

Aaroona

3194 posts

Uber Geek

#1242779 20-Feb-2015 08:23

I can't give specifics. But basically, it creates a web API for almost any application, via a lot of different connectors and can do actions then based on what data it receives.

They give a very simple but functional example in one of the online webinars.

Basically you have an HR form that someone fills out, it then send that information and based on department creates a salesforce.com account, it then sends a message to a message queue where it can be picked up (essentially notification of a new employee),
It can then Tweet that new employee a welcome message to the companies twitter account,
It can insert the data into a database table for an HR system.

Using their Studio editor, you modify the work flows and create work flows for whatever you're needing to do, then you connect the two systems together, and then map the data between them to get the desired result.

It's actually pretty cool and I'm looking forward to testing it, but I guess I just want to make sure I'm also positioning myself with a technology that is in demand, or on its way to being, which is where I was hoping to get some advice :)

t0ny

395 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1242838 20-Feb-2015 09:34

While i haven't come across that particular software, keep in mind that you want to be sure that the software sticks to standards e.g SOAP, HTML etc. I recently worked on a project where the customer had a piece of integration software and they exposed an endpoint for us to POST data to. The data kept getting rejected and we found that it was expecting spaces in the content type header which wasn't within the RFC spec and the vendor were in no hurry to resolve the issue. Customer ended up spending extra dollars to hire a developer to build a proxy which added the spaces required for their integration software to be able to consume the request. So to make this long story really short, do your due-diligence and if they have a trial version, then do some integration tests to ensure it works in your situation. Do some scalibility testing while you are at it as well

nikolaiadaptiv

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1243019 20-Feb-2015 13:08

1. Have you worked with this product before;
I have been working with integration products for 10+ years now, about 2 years with MuleESB and the Anypoint products. Compared to other tools it is a very sound product and I would highly recommend.

2. How established is it? How many places do you know that work with it?
MuleESB is very well established globablly and in NZ I can think of at least 20 sites using it, we have 5 customers actively using it and they are very pleased. It is very well positioned for modern Saas applications like SalesForce and Workday etc with native connectors, it also plays well in the enterprise space with SAP and other LOB systems.

You should come along to the Mule Summit in Auckland, check out the details here http://www.adaptiv.co.nz/event/mulesummit2015/

Aaroona

3194 posts

Uber Geek

#1253216 8-Mar-2015 10:46

t0ny: While i haven't come across that particular software, keep in mind that you want to be sure that the software sticks to standards e.g SOAP, HTML etc. I recently worked on a project where the customer had a piece of integration software and they exposed an endpoint for us to POST data to. The data kept getting rejected and we found that it was expecting spaces in the content type header which wasn't within the RFC spec and the vendor were in no hurry to resolve the issue. Customer ended up spending extra dollars to hire a developer to build a proxy which added the spaces required for their integration software to be able to consume the request. So to make this long story really short, do your due-diligence and if they have a trial version, then do some integration tests to ensure it works in your situation. Do some scalibility testing while you are at it as well

Good to know - I'll keen that in mind. I believe I'll be getting training on this software pretty soon, as we go through our deployment. Will be interesting to see what we have and how it all works.

nikolaiadaptiv: 1. Have you worked with this product before;
I have been working with integration products for 10+ years now, about 2 years with MuleESB and the Anypoint products. Compared to other tools it is a very sound product and I would highly recommend.

2. How established is it? How many places do you know that work with it?
MuleESB is very well established globablly and in NZ I can think of at least 20 sites using it, we have 5 customers actively using it and they are very pleased. It is very well positioned for modern Saas applications like SalesForce and Workday etc with native connectors, it also plays well in the enterprise space with SAP and other LOB systems.

You should come along to the Mule Summit in Auckland, check out the details here http://www.adaptiv.co.nz/event/mulesummit2015/

That's interesting - it's very hard to find any write up's about it, other than their own website. Gives me a little more confidence to hear that someone else has heard about it.
During a meeting last week, I saw the paper put together for the business case, and I saw there was mention of about 7 large organisations in NZ that use it. I guess what got me a little worried was that when I did a search on Seek and TradeMe, I only got one result for Mulesoft, and it was listed as a "nice-to-have", under a developer role.
I'm not looking at heading into a developer role at all, it's not really my cup of tea- I'll do scripting and build a couple of .Net apps where I need to, but it's not my passion, so don't want to pigeon-hole myself.

I'll have a chat with my Manager and see what he says about the Summit. Might well be worth going for a look, even for just myself. I know the company is going to definitely go forward with Mulesoft, but it's about whether I want to be with it, or not.

Edit: Oops, just realized I missed the event by 3 days! haha. Typical - maybe I should keep up with my emails!

toyonut

1508 posts

Uber Geek

#1253252 8-Mar-2015 12:18

Does their integration engine also search google for questions about mulesoft and send a bot to answer them? NikolaiAdaptive with his one and only post about mulesoft...

Looks interesting though. Could you keep this thread updated with your thoughts?

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

Aaroona

3194 posts

Uber Geek

#1253253 8-Mar-2015 12:20

paulmilbank: Does their integration engine also search google for questions about mulesoft and send a bot to answer them? NikolaiAdaptive with his one and only post about mulesoft...

Looks interesting though. Could you keep this thread updated with your thoughts?

Hahaha, touche. I can't believe I missed that one ;)

I'll keep looking...

I'll try remember to keep this thread updated as well - I suspect I'll know more in the next couple of weeks

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nikolaiadaptiv

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1253691 9-Mar-2015 09:08

Hey guys, no there is no search bot just good old fashioned team communications =), one of my work colleagues pointed out the query so I registered and left my 2 cents on the topic.

The only other thing I would add is that integration is quite a specific IT specialisation and not really something you can touch on occasionally if you want it to work effectively. The MuleSoft team have excellent training courses though if you are going to try and get across the application, they also provide good implementation resources to help you get the application stood up in your enterprise.

Regards
Nikolai

Aaroona

3194 posts

Uber Geek

#1253698 9-Mar-2015 09:15

nikolaiadaptiv: Hey guys, no there is no search bot just good old fashioned team communications =), one of my work colleagues pointed out the query so I registered and left my 2 cents on the topic.

The only other thing I would add is that integration is quite a specific IT specialisation and not really something you can touch on occasionally if you want it to work effectively. The MuleSoft team have excellent training courses though if you are going to try and get across the application, they also provide good implementation resources to help you get the application stood up in your enterprise.

Regards
Nikolai

Thanks for the comments. It will be interesting to see what happens. The idea is that I will be taking an operational role to the Mulesoft suite, rather than Development, but the scope and responsibility of that are yet to be defined. I do get a little bit of a twitch when you say it's not something you can't "touch on occasionally." I guess my main concern is, it's not necessarily where I want to be going as a full time role (at least, my impression so far.. will know more when I start work on it).
If it's an application I take care of as part of a stack of applications, then that's fine.

nikolaiadaptiv

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1254558 10-Mar-2015 11:27

In terms of a management role MuleESB is quite easy to use, again there is a 3 day course that takes you deep into everything you need to know.

In terms of advertisements I recommend using Seek, I do believe in terms of technology roles TradeMe is losing ground. We no longer advertise in both TradeMe and Seek, infact our most recent role for Mule/BizTalk team members is only on seek

http://www.seek.co.nz/job/28224375

I have searches setup and I receive at least on or two roles daily, although i am also search AU. Also note demand for specialist skills is always less than say a Java or .NET developer, but the salaries tend to fall between 120-160k.

http://www.seek.co.nz/job/28270199
http://www.seek.co.nz/job/28238358
http://www.seek.co.nz/job/28241305
http://www.seek.co.nz/job/28270348