[niftich]

Well, the promise is a kind of drag-and-drop [1], mix-and-match [2], transform these data fields this way, make a decision off of these other data fields, and ship it there kind of integration. Extra points for having a Store for others' components [3], and optionally doing it in the Cloud [4]. Their site has been tailored to convert executive-types on every buzzword, from Microservices [5] to DevOps [6] to Mobile [7].

Whether this works out is entirely dependent on your org: it still requires competent people wiring up things -- much to management's chagrin -- but it can save a fair bit of time. Tradeoffs all around.

Mule basically started off with an ESB [8] that's a glorified reactor queue and a bunch of canned components of varying qualities that either implement an EIP primitive [9], or some domain-specific templated executor (make SQL calls, make API calls, etc). Now there's a whole ecosystem around it: a marketplace of components, an API proxy, management and monitoring layers, and fancy GUIs. The tools are (mostly) solid -- no more and no less than any other big-name commercial tool, but I'd venture to guess a lot of businesses buy this thinking it's going to be The Silver Bullet they're looking for, and it predictably rarely works that way.

[1] https://www.mulesoft.com/platform/studio [2] https://www.mulesoft.com/integration-solutions/dataweave-int... [3] https://www.mulesoft.com/exchange/ [4] https://www.mulesoft.com/platform/saas/cloudhub-ipaas-cloud-... [5] https://www.mulesoft.com/integration-solutions/api/microserv... [6] https://www.mulesoft.com/integration-solutions/api/devops [7] https://www.mulesoft.com/integration-solutions/api/mobility [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13672234#13673158 [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Integration_Pattern...

[useryournoggin]

it's hard to understand how this actually gets used for those of us not in enterprise IT. would be great to see an example of a real project using Mule (or similar products).