Author: Rajnish Kumar

Rajnish Kumar is CTO of Vanrish Technology with Over 25 years experience in different industries and technology. He is very passionate about innovation and latest technology like APIs, IOT (Internet Of Things), Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem and Cybersecurity. He present his idea in different platforms and help customer to their digital transformation journey.
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APIs Integration with IOT and CRM improves Customer Service

APIs integration helping IOT and CRM to enable better customer experience

IOT (Internet of things) is revolutionizing our lives. As per Gartner report by 2025 IOT market will expand a 58-billion-dollar opportunity. It is affecting all parts of our life. In our pandemic era we found more use of IOT device to maintain social distancing.

IOT is also one of the main disruptive technologies in our businesses. It is affecting all business domain including healthcare, retail, automotive, security.

There are wide range of IOT benefits in business.

  • Enhanced productivity
  • Better customer experience
  • Cost-effectiveness

CRM system is keeping all your customer relationship like data, notes, metrics and more – in one place. CRM is helping small business to take off all burden from the IT management team by automating the business process. It is also helping employee to keep the focus on the critical business areas.

API is helping to integrate these two unrelated systems. APIs are enabling this system to optimize process and streamline whole business process. API is the main communication channel to build robust process and keeping real time update to these systems. APIs are allowing to build context-based application with IOT and CRM to interact with the physical world.

Now here are few areas where IOT is helping CRM system with help of APIs to optimize business process.

  1. Optimize customer service – Before your customer finds any error in your service/product you proactively acting on error and fixing those error. This will help to build relationship with customer.
  2. Increase sales – With help of IOT and CRM system you are finding untouched opportunity and using those opportunity to increase your sale.
  3. Personalize customer experience – You are analyzing data provided by IOT and CRM system and building user based predictive model to enable personalize experience to user.
  4. Customer retention – CRM provide customer data and relationship. IOT data providing customer behavior. This will help any business to personalize and target marketing for their customer.
  5. Omnichannel instore experience – IOT and CRM is helping business to enable 360 omnichannel customer experience. This process will help and suggest the products which the customer might purchase.

APIs  integration with IOT and CRM helping business to enable higher degree of personalization, target marketing, optimize price model, higher revenue and enhance customer satisfaction.

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Anypoint Platform: External (OKTA) Identity Management

Anypoint Platform acts as a client provider by default, but you can also configure external client providers to authorize client applications. As an API owner, you can apply an OAuth 2.0 policy to authorize client applications that try to access your API. You need an OAuth 2.0 provider to use an OAuth 2.0 policy. You can configure more than one client provider and associate the client providers with different environments. If you configure multiple client providers after you have already created environments, you can associate the new client providers with the environment. 

MuleSoft supports client management by identity providers that implement the OpenID Connect Dynamic Client Registration open standard. MuleSoft explicitly verifies support in Anypoint Platform for Salesforce, Okta, and OpenAM v14 Dynamic Client Registration. The following table contains examples of the URLs you need to supply, depending on your provider, during registration.

URL NameOkta Example URLOpenAM Example URLSalesforce Example URL
Base https://example.okta.com/oauth2/v1 https://example.com/openam/oauth2 https://example.salesforce.com/services/oauth2
Client Registration {BASE URL}/clients {BASE URL}/connect/register {BASE URL}/register
Authorize {BASE URL}/authorize {BASE URL}/authorize {BASE URL}/authorize
Token {BASE URL}/token {BASE URL}/access_token {BASE URL}/token
Token Introspection {BASE URL}/introspect {BASE URL}/introspect {BASE URL}/introspect
URL Name Okta Example URL OpenAM Example URL Salesforce Example URL

Steps to Create External Client Provider

  • Log in to Anypoint Platform using an account that has the organization administrator role.
  • In Anypoint Platform, click Access Management.
  • In the menu on the left, click Client Providers.

  • Click Add Client Provider, and then select OpenID Connect Dynamic Client Registration.
    The Add OIDC client provider page appears.
  • After obtaining values from your identity provider’s configuration, complete the following required fields in each section:
    • Dynamic Client Registration
      • Issuer: URL that the OpenID provider asserts is its trusted issuer.
      • Client Registration URL: The URL to dynamically register client applications as a client application for your identity provider.
      • Authorization Header
        • For Okta, this value is SSWS ${api_token}, where api_token is an API token created through Okta.
        • For ForgeRock, this value is Bearer ${api_token}, where api_token is an API token created through ForgeRock.
        • For Salesforce, this value is Bearer ${api_token}, where api_token is an API token created through Salesforce. In Advanced Settings you can also select:
      • Disable server certificate validation: Disables server certificate validation if your OpenID client management instance presents a self-signed certificate, or one signed by an internal certificate authority.
      • Enable client deletion in Anypoint Platform: Enables deletion of clients created with this integration.
      • Enable client deletion and updates in IdP: To use this option, you must also select the Enable client deletion in Anypoint Platform option.
    • Token Introspection Client
      • Client ID: The client ID for an existing client in your IdP capable of introspection of all tokens from all clients.
        • For Okta, this value should be a “Confidential” client.
        • For ForgeRock, this value should be a “Confidential” client.
        • For Salesforce, this value should be a “Confidential” client.
      • Client Secret: The client secret that corresponds to the client ID.
    • OpenID Connect Authorization URLs
      • Authorize URL: The URL where the user authenticates and grants OpenID Connect client applications access to the user’s identity.
      • Token URL: The URL that provides the user’s identity, encoded in a secure JSON Web Token.
      • Token Introspection URL: endpoint that returns metadata about the access token, including expiration and token active state.
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Mule 4: Consume a SOAP Webservice

The Web Service Consumer is an existing connector in Mule 4 that you can configure to point to a SOAP based web service. Webservice consumer call webservice hosted elsewhere as WSDL SOAP services and get response. This connector simplified process and encapsulated all the feature to consume SOAP based webservice. When no connector is available specific to any product (like Service-Now, Workday etc.), which is hosted as SOAP based webservice then this webservice consumer Connector enables any services to consume.

The main feature of this connector is

  • Consuming DOC Literal Web services.
  • SOAP multipart messages.
  • SOAP Headers.
  • DataSense support for SOAP Headers, SOAP Body, and Attachment.
  • Embedded DataWeave transformations inside the operation.
  • Support and Unified experience for SOAP with attachments and MTOM handling.
  • Custom HTTP configuration as transport (runtime and design time).
  • Web Service Security (WS Security) support.

Connector Configuration- In this section we define connector configuration to communicate with SOAP based webservice end point. By default, connector uses a simple non protected HTTP configuration to send all outgoing SOAP message.  In connector configuration you can select your SOAP version from drop down  and provide WSDL location. Connector extract and populates Service, Port and webservice endpoint address from WSDL file.

But if you are using secure endpoint address with HTTPS you need to configure custom Transportation Configuration for HTTPS.

These are the steps to enable your secure HTTPS endpoint.

  • Create jks file with keytool command
 keytool -keystore clientkeystore.jks -genkey -alias client
  • Download certificate from WSDL HTTPS endpoint and add this certificate in your JKS file with below command
keytool -importcert -file certificate.cer -keystore clientkeystore.jks -alias "Alias"
  • Now configure TLS Context for Webservice consumer connector.
<tls:context name="TLS_Context" doc:name="TLS Context" doc:id="f634b824-2695-4d5f-8789-7a309b1511cb" >
           <tls:trust-store path="certificate/clientkeystore.jks" password="xxxxxx" type="jks" />
     </tls:context>
  • Now configure HTTP Request configuration for HTTPS endpoint.
<http:request-config name="HTTPS_Request_configuration" doc:name="HTTPS Request configuration" doc:id="02db1fd9-9f04-4eae-83cf-df43effd25d2">
           <http:request-connection protocol="HTTPS" host="service.vanrish.com" port="443" tlsContext="TLS_Context">
     	   </http:request-connection>
	</http:request-config>
  • If TLS and HTTPS configuration configured then you can select HTTP request configuration from Webservice consumer
<wsc:config name="BookService_Web_Service_Consumer_Config" doc:name="Book Web Service Consumer Config" doc:id="59fd0d73-f90d-4cf0-9855-c008307067a2" >
 <wsc:connection wsdlLocation="wsdl\bookservice.wsdl" service="BookService" port="BookServicePort" address="https://service.vanrish.com:443/service/BookService">
  <wsc:custom-transport-configuration >
    <wsc:http-transport-configuration requesterConfig="HTTPS_Request_configuration"/>
  </wsc:custom-transport-configuration>
 </wsc:connection>
</wsc:config>

Connector Parameter- If connector configuration is configured properly, your operation parameters are available from WSDL as drop down options.

In Message section there are three parameters available

  1. Body – The Body is main part of the SOAP message. The body element accepts embedded DataWeave scripts as values so that you can construct the XML request without having a side effect on the message or having to use multiple components to create the request.
  2. Headers – The headers element contains application-specific information (like authentication, payment, and so on) about the SOAP message . This elements accepts embedded DataWeave scripts as values.
  3. Attachment – The attachments element enables you to bind attachments to the SOAP message. This element also accepts embedded DataWeave scripts as values.

Since you configured custom HTTPS connector for your webservice consumer Connector you can configure Transport Configuration. In Transport header section you can select “Edit inline” and add all your header parameters in line

<wsc:consume doc:name="Consume" doc:id="ca5a1247-7cf6-4c7f-a442-b6fd037c13c9" config-ref="BookService_Web_Service_Consumer_Config" operation="AddBook">
       <wsc:transport-headers >
          <wsc:transport-header key="SOAPAction" value="AddBook" />
          <wsc:transport-header key="Content-Type" value="text/xml; charset=UTF-8" />
          <wsc:transport-header key="Authorization" value="${book.authorization}" />
       </wsc:transport-headers>
 </wsc:consume>

Here is webservice consumer flow diagram

Code for this flow

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mule xmlns:ee="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core"
	xmlns:http="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http" xmlns:tls="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/tls"
	xmlns:wsc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/wsc"
	xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core" xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core/current/mule-ee.xsd http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/wsc http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/wsc/current/mule-wsc.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/tls http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/tls/current/mule-tls.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http/current/mule-http.xsd">
	
	<wsc:config name="BookService_Web_Service_Consumer_Config" doc:name="Book Web Service Consumer Config" doc:id="59fd0d73-f90d-4cf0-9855-c008307067a2" >
            <wsc:connection wsdlLocation="wsdl\bookservice.wsdl" service="BookService" port="BookServicePort" address="https://service.vanrish.com:443/service/BookService">
	            <wsc:custom-transport-configuration >
					<wsc:http-transport-configuration requesterConfig="HTTPS_Request_configuration" />
				</wsc:custom-transport-configuration>
            </wsc:connection>
     </wsc:config>

	<tls:context name="TLS_Context" doc:name="TLS Context" doc:id="f634b824-2695-4d5f-8789-7a309b1511cb" >
           <tls:trust-store path="certificate/clientkeystore.jks" password="changeit" type="jks" />
     </tls:context>

    <http:request-config name="HTTPS_Request_configuration" doc:name="HTTPS Request configuration" doc:id="02db1fd9-9f04-4eae-83cf-df43effd25d2">
           <http:request-connection protocol="HTTPS" host="service.vanrish.com" port="443" tlsContext="TLS_Context">
     	   </http:request-connection>
	</http:request-config>

	<sub-flow name="addbook-ServiceSub_Flow" doc:id="511f0969-0b7d-4b7e-a113-60ef03e97648" >
             <logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="e6bd0106-e512-4fdd-97cf-1dbd77e1e0e7" message="Entering into AddBook flow"/>
                             <ee:transform doc:name="Transform Message" doc:id="06cc17de-86a9-4c53-a2f4-167d9561bed9" >
                                           <ee:message >
                                                          <ee:set-payload ><![CDATA[%dw 2.0
 output application/xml skipNullOn="everywhere"
 ns n0  https://www.service.vanrish.com/BookService/
  ---
   n0#AddBook:
         {
                 n0#Book : {
                 	ID: payload.id,
                 	Title : payload.title,
                 	Author : payload.author
                 }
         }]]></ee:set-payload>
                                           </ee:message>
                             </ee:transform>
                             <logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="ce84f628-7b38-4d2d-b5e3-9fdded2c9289" message="soap request --> #[payload]"/>
                             
<wsc:consume doc:name="Consume" doc:id="ca5a1247-7cf6-4c7f-a442-b6fd037c13c9" config-ref="BookService_Web_Service_Consumer_Config" operation="AddBook">
                                           <wsc:transport-headers >
                                                          <wsc:transport-header key="SOAPAction" value="AddBook" />
                                                          <wsc:transport-header key="Content-Type" value="text/xml; charset=UTF-8" />
                                                          <wsc:transport-header key="Authorization" value="${book.authorization}" />
                                           </wsc:transport-headers>
                             </wsc:consume>
                             <logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="680d69e0-2b01-480c-afe7-660ca22b2f9f" message="AddBook Output-->#[payload]"/>
                             <ee:transform doc:name="Transform Message" doc:id="72d26561-107a-4c6e-a7d4-85bd18e0d316" >
                                           <ee:message >
                                                          <ee:set-payload ><![CDATA[%dw 2.0
ns ns0 https://www.service.vanrish.com/BookService/
 

output application/json skipNullOn="everywhere"
---
payload.body.ns0#AddBookResponse]]></ee:set-payload>
                                           </ee:message>
                             </ee:transform>
                             <logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="ea517185-efa4-4bf2-a03f-e8bd4d308e80" message="Output AddBook --> #[payload]"/>
              </sub-flow>
</mule>
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Mulesoft 4: Using Java in Dataweave 2.0

Mule 4 introduces DataWeave 2.0 as the default expression language replacing Mule Expression Language (MEL). DataWeave 2.0 is tightly integrated with the Mule 4 runtime engine, which runs the scripts and expressions in your Mule application.

Since Dataweave 2.0 is default expression language for Mule 4, Dataweave can use almost all place within your Mule application. So, In some use-case Dataweave needs to call java method or instantiate java class to execute java complex business logic.

In my previous blog I explained usage of java within Mulesoft flow. In this blog I am explaining usage of java within Dataweave 2.0.

There are 2 ways we can use java within Dataweave code

  1. Calling java method
  2. Instantiate Java class
1. Calling java method — There is restriction with Dataweave when calling to java. you can only call Static methods via DataWeave (methods that belong to a Java class, not methods that belong to a specific instance of a class). Before making a method call from java class, you must import the class.

Here is Dataweave code

In dataweave this method can use multiple way

Import only method instead of the whole class:

%dw 2.0
import java!com::vanrish::AppUtils:: encode
output application/json
---
{
   encode:encode("mystring" as String)
}

import and call it in a single line:

%dw 2.0
output application/json
---
{ 
    encode: java!com::vanrish::AppUtils:: encode ("mystring" as String)
 }
2. Instantiate Java class – Dataweave allows to instantiate a new object of any java class but you can’t call its instance method through dataweave. You can refer it as variables.

%dw 2.0
import java!com::vanrish::AppUtils 
output application/json
---
{
     value: AppUtils::new().data
 }

AppUtils.java

package com.vanrish;

import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder;
/**
 * @author rajnish
 */
public class AppUtils{
	public static final BASE64Encoder encoder = new BASE64Encoder();
        private String data;
	
	/**
	 * @param plainString
	 * @return
	 */
	public static String encode(String plainString)
	{
		String encodedString = encoder.encodeBuffer(plainString.getBytes());
		return encodedString;
	}

/**
	 * @param dataStr
	 * @return
	 */
	public String getData(String dataStr)
	{
              data = dataStr+" : test";
              return  data;
	}
}

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MuleSoft 4: Using Java in Mule Flow

MuleSoft is a lightweight integration and API platform that allows you to connect anything anywhere and enable your data through API. Mule evolved from java and spring framework. MuleSoft supports multiple language although all Mule module are developed in java.

 Since Mule evolved from java it has capability to use direct java class and method in Mule flow. This capability gives flexibility to Mule developer to use java for complex business logic.

There are several ways you can use java within Mule. Here are some of Java modules available to use within MuleSoft application

There are 4 java modules are available in MuleSoft flow

  1. New
  2. Invoke
  3. Invoke static
  4. Validate type

To explain all these components and uses in Mule flow I created Utils.java and AppUtils.java classes

1. New – AppUtils.java class instantiation can be achieved by calling constructor of this class through MuleSoft New component within Mule flow.

AppUtils java class defined 2 contractors, So Mule constructor properties for NEW component is showing 2 options.

New module without parameter

<java:new doc:name="Instantiate appUtils" doc:id="22ddcb7e-82ed-40f8-bc11-b779ceedd1a1"
    constructor="AppUtils()"  class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" target="appInst">
</java:new>

New module with parameter

<java:new doc:name="Instantiate appUtils" doc:id="22ddcb7e-82ed-40f8-bc11-b779ceedd1a1"
    constructor="AppUtils(String)"  class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" target="appInst">
    <java:args ><![CDATA[#[{paramVal:"Hello world}]]]>
</java:new>

In above code, Instance of AppUtils class is created and placed into the “appInst”  target variables to reuse same instance in Mule flow.

New module
2. Invoke – In new java module we instantiate AppUtils.java class and placed into “appInst” variable. Now to use this variable set Invoke module and call one of method define in AppUtils.java class. In AppUtils.java class, there is one non static method “generateRandomNumber” defined with String parameter. In example we call this method through Invoke module. 
<java:invoke doc:name="Invoke" doc:id="9348e2cf-87fe-4ff7-958c-f430d0421702"
      instance="#[vars.appInst]" class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" method="generateRandomNumber(String)">
     <java:args ><![CDATA[#[{numVal:”100”}]]]></java:args>
</java:invoke>
Invoke module
3. Invoke static—Invoke static java module enable mule flow to call java static method. This is one of the easy ways to call any java method in Mule flow.

Mule code is calling to java static method

<java:invoke-static doc:name="Invoke static" doc:id="bc3e110c-d970-47ef-891e-93fb3ffb61bd" 
  class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" method="encode(String)">
   <java:args ><![CDATA[#[{plainString:"mystringval"}]]]></java:args>
</java:invoke-static>
Invoke-static module
4. Validate type – Validate type java module use instance of method from java. This module accepts “Accept subtypes” parameter which indicates if the operation should accept all subclasses of a class. By default it acceptSubtypes=“true” which means it will accept all sub class of main class but if it will set as false acceptSubtypes=“false” then during execution the operation throws an error (JAVA:WRONG_INSTANCE_CLASS) 
<java:validate-type doc:name="Validate type" doc:id="288c791c-50eb-4be0-b924-56481dfdc023"
 class="com.vanrish.Utils" instance="#[vars.appInst]" acceptSubtypes="false"/>
Validate-type module

Java in Mule flow diagram

java in Mule flow

Utils.java

package com.vanrish;

public class Utils{
	
}

AppUtils.java

package com.vanrish;
import java.util.Random;
import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder;
/**
 * @author rajnish
 */
public class AppUtils extends Utils {
	public static final BASE64Encoder encoder = new BASE64Encoder();
	//Constructor without Parameter
	public AppUtils(){
		System.out.println("Constructor with no parameter");
	}
	//Constructor with Parameter
  public AppUtils(String paramVal){
		System.out.println("Constructor with parameter value="+paramVal);
	}
	/**
	 * @param String
	 * @return
	 */
	public  String generateRandomNumber(String numVal) {
		Integer numNoRange = null;
		  Random rand = new Random();
		  if(numVal !=null) {
			  numNoRange = rand.nextInt(new Integer(numVal));
		  }else {
		   numNoRange = rand.nextInt();
		  }
	    return numNoRange.toString();
	}
	/**
	 * @param plainString
	 * @return
	 */
	public static String encode(String plainString)
	{
		String encodedString = encoder.encodeBuffer(plainString.getBytes());
		return encodedString;
	}
}

Mulesoft Code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mule xmlns:java="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/java" xmlns:db="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/db"
xmlns:ee="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core" xmlns:http="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http" xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core"
 xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation" 
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd 
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http/current/mule-http.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core/current/mule-ee.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/hl7 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/hl7/current/mule-hl7.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/db
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/db/current/mule-db.xsdhttp://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/java http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/java/current/mule-java.xsd">

<http:listener-config name="HTTP_Listener_config" doc:name="HTTP Listener config" doc:id="af3ce281-bf68-4c7b-83fb-52b2d2506677" >

<http:listener-connection host="0.0.0.0" port="8081" />
</http:listener-config>
<flow name="helloworldFlow" doc:id="a13826dc-67a1-4cda-8133-bc16a59ddba2" >
  <http:listener doc:name="Listener" doc:id="82522c77-5c33-4003-820a-7a04b51c3001" config-ref="HTTP_Listener_config" path="helloworld"/>
  <logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="b40bc107-1ab5-4a3f-8f20-d7dfb63e5acb" message="entering flow"/>
  <java:new doc:name="Instantiate appUtils" doc:id="c1854580-f4d4-4e5c-a34d-7ca185152d02"
constructor="AppUtils(String)" class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" target="appInst" 
 >
  <java:args ><! 
  [CDATA[#[{
      paramVal:"Hello world"
  }]]]></java:args>
  </java:new>

 <java:invoke doc:name="Invoke" doc:id="9348e2cf-87fe-4ff7-958c-f430d0421702" instance="#[vars.appInst]" class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" method="generateRandomNumber(String)">
<java:args ><![CDATA[#[{
numVal:null
}]]]></java:args>
</java:invoke>
<java:invoke-static doc:name="Invoke static" doc:id="bc3e110c-d970-47ef-891e-93fb3ffb61bd" class="com.vanrish.AppUtils" method="encode(String)">
<java:args ><![CDATA[#[{
  plainString:"mystringval"
}]]]></java:args>
</java:invoke-static>
<java:validate-type doc:name="Validate type" doc:id="288c791c-50eb-4be0-b924-56481dfdc023" class="com.vanrish.Utils" instance="#[vars.appInst]"/>
<set-payload value="Success" doc:name="Set Payload" doc:id="8b6c9c0b-07c8-4e17-b649-2c24d4da8bea" />
</flow>
</mule>
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MuleSoft: Cloudhub vCores Usage Optimization

Mulesoft Connect 2019 was wrapped last month in North america. These connects are one of the premier conferences for API led connectivity and digital transformation.These conference brought more content for developers, architects, and business executives across different business domain. At MuleSoft CONNECT plethora of market experts, and business executives including industry’s CEO/CTO,  discussed their Mulesoft experience and democratization of innovation.

During these conferences, I got an opportunity to talk to some business executives about their Mulesoft experiences and challenges.

One of the biggest challenges is to optimize Mulesoft vCore in cloudhub to keep their project in budget. 

Here are few steps in Mulesoft application to keep vCore usage low and project in budget.

1. API Optimization — As per Mulesoft best practices, Mulesoft suggest API led connectivity to expose data to application within or outside of your organization through reusable and purposeful APIs.

The APIs used in an API-led approach to connectivity falls  into three categories:

  • Experience APIs
  • Process APIs 
  • System APIs

When you are working on API led connectivity, do we really need all three layers of APIs every time?

No, It is not necessary to implement all three layers of APIs every time.

API Layers

Here are some of API layers use-case to save vCores usage and optimize APIs led connectivity.

  • Experience APIs — Experience API is similar to process APIs but unlike Process APIs, Experience APIs are more specifically tied to a unique business context, and project data formats, interaction timings, or protocols into a specific channel and context. These  APIs simplifies your front end data, based on different GUI. For example if you are working on PC website or Mobile website, we display data based on user experience, so we need different APIs to show these data, but if your application needs  only data irrespective of user experience we can skip Experience APIs and application can work only on Process APIs or System APIs. This will save some vCores and keep project in budget.
  • Process APIs — Process APIs, if you are working on complex business logic based on different organization department then you can incorporate all these business specific data in process layer and expose these data through process APIs. But if APIs are not incorporating any complex business logic and most of datas are processing through System APIs then in this use-case you can skip Process APIs and expose your data through System APIs. In this way you can save some vCore and keep your project within budget.

2. Salesforce Platform Events Integration – Salesforce integration with Mulesoft is one of the very common integration use-cases. In the old days  Salesforce synced their data through polling. Poll run couple of time in whole day and sync data between different salesforce org. Since this is polling process, it is not easy to predict the volume of data flowing through Mulesoft application during a certain period of time. So in this case, we go with higher mulesoft vCore to avoid any memory leak. 

Salesforce introduced “Platform Events”   the Salesforce Enterprise Messaging Platform on June 2017. After introduction of “Platform Event”,  integration of Mulesoft and salesforce has become very easy. “Platform Event” enterprise messaging service is event based. So any update for any create Object within salesforce generates event and sends payload to salesforce messaging queue. Mulesoft-Salesforce connector read these payload for data sync from Salesforce messaging queue FIFO based. Since this integration is event based, so as soon as Mulesoft receives event from “Platform event” it is processes Platform event message. So any time we have no large set of data to process. In this integration then we can go for lower vCore and execute project within budget. 

3. Batch Process Optimization — Mulesoft allows to process messages in batch. Mule batch process provides a construct for asynchronous processing larger-than-memory data sets that can split into individual records. Mulesoft batch extracting, transforming and loading (ETL) information into a target system like hadoop.

               Mulesoft needs large memory/vCore to run large sets of data in batch process.   These Mulesoft batch process runs max once or twice a day . These Mulesoft batch  hold large number of vCore idle rest of day without any active usage. You can optimize vCore usage and reduce your batching processing cost by following these two steps.

  • Reuse vCore by deploying multiple batch process applications — As you know, batch run certain time of day once or twice. Suppose one batch application is running every midnight and other batch application is running every morning . Both your batch application is taking 1 vCore. So both applications consuming  total 2 vCore.

If you are configuring any CI/CD process like Jenkin/Code build to deploy your batch application into cloud then it is very easy to manage your process to reuse your vCore. Your can configure you CI/CD process to build your application and deploy your application into cloud when you want to run batch. Once batch is done then you un-deploy your application and deploy next batch application on same memory. In this way you can keep reusing your vCore memory and keep your project within budget.

  • Deploy Batch application in on-premise Mulesoft server — As we all know Batch process is simple and easy to maintain application in most to their use-case. In this case it is very easy to maintain on-premise Mulesoft server and deploy your batch application without much worry about vCore usage.

Link:

Salesforce Platform Event Mulesoft Integration : https://www.vanrish.com/blog/2018/10/01/mulesoft-salesforce-platform-events-integration/

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Mulesoft: FedRamp Compliance Cloud Integration for Government

Fiscal year 2019, government estimated $45.8 billion on IT investments at major civilian agencies, which will be used to acquire, develop, and implement modern technologies.78% of this budget goes to maintain existing IT system. In a constantly changing IT landscape, the migration of federal on-premise technologies to the cloud is increasing every year. Federal agencies have the opportunity to save money and time by adopting innovative cloud services to meet their critical mission needs and keep up to date with current technology. Federal agencies are required by law to protect any federal information that is collected, maintained, processed, disseminated, or disposed of by cloud service offerings, in accordance with FedRAMP requirements.

What is Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRamp) ? 

FedRamp is a US government-wide program that delivers a standard approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. The stakeholders for FedRamps are 

  1. Federal Agencies
  2. FedRamp PMO & JAB(Joint Authorization Board)
  3. Third Party Assessment Organization

FedRamp Process — There are 3 ways a cloud service can be proposed for FedRamp Authorization.

  1. Cloud BPA — Cloud Services through FCCI BPAs
  2. Government Cloud Systems — Services must be intended for use by multiple government or government approved agencies.
  3. Agency Sponsorship — This is the most popular route for cloud service providers (CSPs) to take when working toward a FedRAMP Authorization. CSP to establish a partnership with an Agency and agree to work together for an Authority to Operate(ATO).

Mulesoft FedRAMP Authorize Integration Platform

Mulesoft recently announced, FedRAMP process implementation of Anypoint Platform. MuleSoft is one of the first integration platform companies with FedRamp authorization and enabling both on-premises and cloud integration in the federal government and state government. Enablement of FedRamp of Mulesoft Anypoint platform, government IT teams can leverage the same core Anypoint Platform benefits in the cloud to accelerate their project delivery via reusable APIs.Anypoint Platform allows all government integration assets to be managed and monitored from a single, secure, cloud based management console, simplifying operations and increasing IT agility. 

Mulesoft Anypoint platform enables FedRamp-compliant iPAAS for government organization. Government IT integration project deploy in Anypoint platform within Mulesoft Government cloud 

  1. Accelerate government IT project deliveries by deploying sophisticated cross-cloud integration applications and create new APIs on top of existing data sources
  2. Project deliveries improve efficiencies at lower cost by allowing IT integration teams to focus on designing, deploying, and managing integrations in the cloud and allowing agencies to only pay for what they use, .
  3. Reduce risk of your IT project integration and increase application reliability by using of self-healing mechanism to recover from problems and load balancing.  

What is Mulesoft Government Cloud?

Mulesoft government cloud is a FedRamp-compliant, cloud based deployment environment for Anypoint platform. 

  1. It is built on AWS GovCloud with FedRamp control. 
  2. Mule Runtimes configured in secure mode to support the highest encryption standards and FIPS(Federal Information Processing Standard)  140-2 hardware and software encryption compliance.
  3. It is FedRamp-compliance at the moderate impact level.
  4. It is continuous 3rd party(3 POs) auditing and monitoring of security control.

Mulesoft government cloud can be access through this link https://gov.anypoint.mulesoft.com/login/ . Mulesoft Government cloud resources are available through Anypoint exchange. Mulesoft Government cloud exchange URL is https://gov.anypoint.mulesoft.com/exchange/ .

If you are accessing FedRamp-compliant Anypoint platform, after logging you get end user agreement as a consent. It is very typical for FedRamp-compliant government application.  

Conclusion — Executing any government or state project and working on different integration as well as API enablement, FedRamp-compliant Anypoint platform is one of the best options. It accelerate IT project deliveries, improve efficiencies and reduce IT risk .    

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Mule 4: Consuming APIs through Mule 4 application

Mulesoft is all about API strategy and digital transformation of your organization through APIs within cloudHub or in premise.  Mulesoft also provides platform for APIs to monitor and analyze the usage, control access and protect sensitive data with security policies. API is at the heart of digital transformation and it enables greater speed, flexibility and agility of any organization.

            Exposing of your APIs is one aspect of your digital transformation strategy, but consuming API is also as important as exposing APIs. Consuming API is either application getting data from APIs or create/update data through APIs. Most of APIs are based on HTTP/HTTPS protocol. In Mule 4 consuming APIs is also start with configuration of HTTP/HTTPs protocol.

Configuration of HTTP/HTTPS— HTTP/HTTPS configuration start with selecting protocol. If API is available through HTTP then select protocol HTTP with default port 80 or change port based on expose API document.  If APIs are available through secured connection, then select HTTPS protocol with default port 443. Fill the Host with your expose API end point without any protocol. Fill the other field with default value.

Authentication of API are available with five different selection

  1. None – No authentication. Available for everyone
  2. Expression – Custom or expression-based authentication
  3. Basic authentication – Username/Password authentication
  4. Digest authentication — web server can use to negotiate credentials, such as username or password, with a user’s web browser
  5. Ntlm authentication — NT (New Technology) LAN Manager (NTLM) . Microsoft security protocols intended to provide authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users


If you are working on post/patch/put method api to send data into expose api, set some important parameter based on streaming mode. If API are exposed as streaming mode, then you need to mention content-size of streaming otherwise set value as “NEVER”, then you no need to set content-size.

API Get Call – API get call implement GET method of APIs. Implementation of API get call need parameters. Based on these parameters application get set of data. MuleSoft provide 4 ways to pass these parameters or values.

  • Body
  • Headers
  • Query Parameters
  • URI Parameters

Flow for GET Method

API POST/PUT/PATCH Call –

POST – Create data

PUT/PATCH – Update data

Similar to Get method call, for POST/PUT/PATCH method application send API parameters based on API requirement. Since application is creating/Updating data through POST/PUT/PATCH api call, application sends these data through body parameters with content-type.

Flow for POST/PUT/PATCH Method

Here is flow of API GET call

Implemented code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mule xmlns:db="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/db" xmlns:ee="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core"
xmlns:http="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http"
xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core" xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http/current/mule-http.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core/current/mule-ee.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/db http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/db/current/mule-db.xsd">
 <configuration-properties doc:name="Configuration properties" doc:id="4bfab9b8-5f36-4b72-b335-35f6f7c3627e" file="mule-app.properties" />
 
<http:listener-config name="HTTP_Listener_config" doc:name="HTTP Listener config" doc:id="49f690e3-8636-45a2-a3f3-244fa170f2f0" basePath="/media" >
<http:listener-connection host="0.0.0.0" port="8081" />
</http:listener-config>
<http:request-config name="HTTPS_Request_configuration" doc:name="HTTP Request configuration" doc:id="4e8927df-e355-4dcd-9bdc-bf154ab1146a" requestStreamingMode="NEVER">
<http:request-connection host="api.vanrish.com" port="443" protocol="HTTPS" connectionIdleTimeout="50000" streamResponse="true">
<http:authentication >
<http:basic-authentication username="2xxxxxxx-xxx0-xxbx-bxxf-xxxxxxxc5" password="xxxxxxxx3dxxxxxb153dbxxxxx29cxxx"/>
</http:authentication>
</http:request-connection>
</http:request-config>
<flow name="demo-mediaFlow" doc:id="a55b1d37-b63d-4336-8d8e-5b70bc354078">
<scheduler doc:name="Scheduler" doc:id="9dc041e5-3140-47a1-a13c-39ee3ba59389" >
<scheduling-strategy >
<fixed-frequency timeUnit="SECONDS"/>
</scheduling-strategy>
</scheduler>
<logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="9bc54079-8718-4dc1-a433-91081dfdabff" message="Get flow Entering ..... "/>
<http:request method="GET" doc:name="Request" doc:id="872f3240-e954-469a-b330-83aa7e40c3db" config-ref="HTTPS_Request_configuration" path="/api/users">
         <http:headers ><![CDATA[#[output application/java
---
{
"client_id" : "xxxx2-d960-4xxx-b5df-4d704ce2xxxx",
"client_secret" : "xxxd5e8663xxxf1b153db732529cxxx",
"Range" : "items=0-2000"
}]]]></http:headers>
<http:uri-params ><![CDATA[#[output application/java
---
{
test : "123"
}]]]></http:uri-params>
     
</http:request>
<logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="9b733315-038b-4f4c-9c2e-15fc026f0524" message="data coming from GET API ...... total payload size --- #[sizeOf(payload)]"/>
<ee:transform doc:name="Transform Message" doc:id="383e857d-efe7-45df-ab33-b75a073080b7" >
<ee:message >
<ee:set-payload ><![CDATA[%dw 2.0
output application/json
---
payload]]></ee:set-payload>
</ee:message>
</ee:transform>
<logger level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" doc:id="769a6306-ee9a-4f51-94ad-562ad1042c5e" message="Getting data from API #[payload]"/>
</flow>
</mule>
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Mule 4: APIKit for SOAP Webservice

Mule 4 introduced APIKit for soap webservice. It is very similar to APIKit for Rest. In SOAP APIKit, it accepts WSDL file instead of RAML file. APIKit for SOAP generates work flow from remote WSDL file or downloaded WSDL file in your system.

To create SOAP APIKit project, First create Mulesoft project with these steps in Anypoint studio.

Under File Menu -> select New -> Mule Project

Mule 4 Project Settings

In above pic WSDL file gets selected from local folder to create Mule Project.

Once you click finish, it generates default APIKit flow based on WSDL file.

In this Mulesoft SOAP APIKit example project, application is consuming SOAP webservice and exposing WSDL and enabling SOAP webservice.

Mule 4 API Kit for Soap Router

In SOAP Router APIKit, APIKit SOAP Configuration is defined WSDL location, Services and Port from WSDL file.

API Kit SOAP configuration

In above configuration, “soapkit-config” SOAP Router look up for requested method. Based on requested method it reroutes request from api-main flow to method flow. In this example, requested method is “ExecuteTransaction” from existing wsdl, so method flow name is

<flow name=“ExecuteTransaction:\soapkit-config”>  

In this example we are consuming same WSDL but end point is different.

To call same WSDL we have to format our request based on WSDL file. In dataweave, create request based on WSDL and sending request through HTTP connector.

Here is dataweave transformation to generate request for existing WSDL file

%dw 2.0
output application/xml
ns soap http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/
ns xsi http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance
ns ns0 http://localhost/Intellect/ExternalWebService
ns xsd http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema
ns ns1 xsd:string
---
 
{
  	soap#Envelope @('xmlns:xsi': 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'): {
  	 	
  	soap#Body: {
     	ExecuteTransaction @('xmlns': 'http://localhost/Intellect/ExternalWebService'): {
     	  Request @(xsi#'type': 'xsd:string'): payload.soap#Body.ns0#ExecuteTransaction.Request 
     	 
     	  }
     	
    	}
    	
  	}
}

Here is main flow

Main flow for API SOAP Kit

Here is full code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<mule xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core"
 xmlns:apikit-soap="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/apikit-soap"
 xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation"
 xmlns:ee="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core"
 xmlns:http="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http"
 xmlns:wsc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/wsc"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http/current/mule-http.xsd
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/apikit-soap
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/apikit-soap/current/mule-apikit-soap.xsd
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/wsc
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/wsc/current/mule-wsc.xsd
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core
 http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/core/current/mule-ee.xsd">
	<http:listener-config basePath="/fda" name="api-httpListenerConfig">
    	<http:listener-connection host="0.0.0.0" port="8081"/>
	</http:listener-config>
	<apikit-soap:config httpStatusVarName="httpStatus" name="soapkit-config" port="ISTCS2SubmitOrderSoap" service="ISTCS2SubmitOrder" wsdlLocation="ISTCOrder.wsdl"/>
	<wsc:config doc:id="b2979182-c4e9-489b-9420-b9320cfe9311" doc:name="Web Service Consumer Config" name="Web_Service_Consumer_Config">
    	<wsc:connection address="https://enterprisetest.vanrish.com/pub/xchange/request/atlas" port="ISTCS2SubmitOrderSoap" service="ISTCS2SubmitOrder" wsdlLocation="api/ISTCOrder.wsdl"/>
	</wsc:config>
	<http:request-config doc:id="408de2f8-c21a-42af-bfe7-2d7e25d153b0" doc:name="HTTP Request configuration" name="HTTP_Request_configuration">
    	<http:request-connection host="enterprisetest.fadv.com" port="443" protocol="HTTPS"/>
	</http:request-config>
	<flow name="api-main">
    	<http:listener config-ref="api-httpListenerConfig" path="/ISTCS2SubmitOrder/ISTCS2SubmitOrderSoap">
        	<http:response statusCode="#[attributes.protocolHeaders.httpStatus default 200]"/>
        	<http:error-response statusCode="#[attributes.protocolHeaders.httpStatus default 500]">
            	<http:body><![CDATA[#[payload]]]></http:body>
        	</http:error-response>
    	</http:listener>
    	<apikit-soap:router config-ref="soapkit-config">
        	<apikit-soap:attributes><![CDATA[#[%dw 2.0
          	output application/java
          	---
          	{
              	headers: attributes.headers,
              	method: attributes.method,
                  queryString: attributes.queryString
        	}]]]></apikit-soap:attributes>
    	</apikit-soap:router>
	</flow>
	<flow name="ExecuteTransaction:\soapkit-config">
    	<logger doc:id="62a3748e-b81c-4a95-9af0-99c5a282b237" doc:name="Logger" level="INFO" message="Entering into flow"/>
    	<ee:transform doc:id="c130d7ff-bd70-4af0-b7d4-9a6caa0d771f">
        	<ee:message>
            	<ee:set-payload><![CDATA[%dw 2.0
output application/xml
ns soap http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/
ns xsi http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance
ns ns0 http://localhost/Intellect/ExternalWebService
ns xsd http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema
ns ns1 xsd:string
---
 
{
  	soap#Envelope @('xmlns:xsi': 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'): {
  	 	
  	soap#Body: {
     	ExecuteTransaction @('xmlns': 'http://localhost/Intellect/ExternalWebService'): {
     	  Request @(xsi#'type': 'xsd:string'): payload.soap#Body.ns0#ExecuteTransaction.Request 
     	 
     	  }
     	
    	}
    	
  	}
}
 
]]></ee:set-payload>
        	</ee:message>
    	</ee:transform>
    	<http:request config-ref="HTTP_Request_configuration" doc:id="6d7001f3-b90a-4ed8-96d2-d577329d21d5" doc:name="Request" method="POST" path="/pub/xchange/request/atlas"/>
    	<logger doc:id="a05e704f-e539-48f3-9556-fe66641e3f64" doc:name="Logger" level="INFO" message="#[payload]"/>
	</flow>
</mule>


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Digital Transformation Journey

When I started my career, there was Y2K issue  going on. Every company was trying to convert their data to be  compatible with upcoming Y2K. In that era, all companies without any 2nd thought were allocating their budgets in these projects. They wanted  to make their systems   compatible to Y2K as soon as possible.

                Currently companies are going through same situation. This time  it is Digital transformation. All industries want to enable digital transformation to expand their business. Digital transformation is touching every company in every industry. But CEOs and CTOs have big challenge to enable data for business and drive their company towards digital transformation. 

                Suppose you are in supply chain industries and your data is sitting in some legacy system.   So in this case there is no use of data. Business will not be  able to run any analytic on this data so that business can identify customer behavior or new business opportunity. It will not be able to add any business value with this data. Company can go out of business due to this lack of vision and data transformation.  In this fast pace world, keeping relevant to your customer it is very necessary to your business to move your data fast and enable new business opportunity.

Here are few challenges CTO’s/Architect are facing to enable their data transformation and delivering innovation.

  • All systems are not delivering seamless experience within organization. Every department is working independently.
  • There is Lack of support for 360 degree view of customer or an agent from the various touch points of business.
  • Duplicate data between systems and lack of data transparency.
  • Growing need of security and compliances are not implemented with growing business.

Here are some of steps to achieve your company’s digital transformation vision.

1. Establish digital vision – If you are leading your company towards digital transformation, it is very necessary that you have very clear vision and strategy around your business requirement. Give training to all stakeholder to embrace new changes due to digital transformation.  Engage business leadership in developing a business capability roadmap.

2. Seamless experiences – Establish seamless experience via user experience design, mobile, agent, customer and service center. Interface need to be fast and provide self service capability. Enable single source of information available system-wide through the API-based integration layer.

3. 360 degree customer view – Setup some process to get a complete view of customers by aggregating data from the various touch points that a customer may use to contact a company to purchase products and receive service and support. Data assets are buried in the data center. APIs bring these data in front of the people who need it to drive new products and new digital services for customers and provide 360 degree view of this data.

4. Embrace the Cloud – Cloud is providing a platform to accelerate company digital transformation journey.Companies are innovating very fast in cloud. They are taking advantage of lower coast and fast deliverable of cloud without worry about IT infrastructure. They are moving data and enable data for artificial Intelligence and analytics through less roll out time of cloud.

Conclusion – Better digital transformation strategy brings better workspace and increase in stakeholder involvement. It increase productivity and bring more innovation for your business.