MuleSoft Integration Architect — Where do we start?
Over the last couple of months, I have been asked by a number of people about where to start if they wanted to explore a career in Data Integration. Well, luckily enough some of the people in the MuleSoft training development area must have had exactly the same thoughts and launched a course at the end of 2022 which provides details on the fundamental skills required to start on the Integration career pathway. And two of the best things are that you don’t have to have any prior MuleSoft experience and that at the end of the course you can take an exam to show that you have the basic fundamental understanding to be a MuleSoft Integration Associate.
Now at this point I should say that the MuleSoft training team thought it would be a great idea to write an article on the course because its relatively new and it acts as a basis for people wanting to get working in MuleSoft Integration so let’s get the details out of the way first and then we can explore the course content.
The certification is called:
MuleSoft Certified Integration Associate
Which you can prepare for by undertaking the self-paced course:
Prepare for Your MuleSoft Certified Integration Associate Credential
Which can be found on the Salesforce Trailhead site using the following link.
Now it wouldn’t be fair of me to try and write an article without taking the course but fortunately I had already completed the course in December 2022 just after it had been published. You could say that I had somewhat of an advantage having already obtained a number of MuleSoft certifications but actually I found the content easy to follow and interesting at the same time. Yes, some of the material I was already familiar with being a C4E Lead and MuleSoft Mentor but that’s not really the point. I wanted to experience the learning pathway so I could recommend it colleagues who are just starting in their integration careers and, I am happy to say, would thoroughly recommend it and already have to a number of people.
At the time of writing the course costs $200 but I know that MuleSoft are reviewing their pricing strategies with the move from the MuleSoft Training Website to the Salesforce Trailhead website so please check on current pricing.
The format of the exam is 40 multiple choice questions, closed book, proctored and online in a period of 90 minutes with a pass score of 70%. A MuleSoft proctored exam is an experience in itself and quite unique to any other exams I have ever undertaken!
So, let’s have a look at the at what the course outcomes are expected to be and then we can briefly look at each section of the course so you can get an understanding of whether this course is for you.
At the end of the course the candidate should be able to work as an informed member of a MuleSoft project team, with knowledge of core integration and API-led connectivity terminology and concepts. That is what the MuleSoft documentation states but I want to explore the individual skills and give my views on them in my capacity as a C4E Lead and MuleSoft Mentor.
The first element of the course looks at the roles and responsibilities within a typical integration project and the lifecycle phases within a typical project. This is contained in the Exam Topic 1 section of the course and examines:
1. MuleSoft Catalyst Playbook
2. Closing the IT Delivery Gap
3. What is Agile project development
4. API lifecycle management
5. DevOps Resources
6. MuleSoft Training learning paths
Immediately you can see from these topics if you have experience of Agile ways of working such as SCRUM or KANBAN or if you have DevOps experience you should have a bit of a head start with the course. However, it should be remembered that the course can only address what is considered as a typical project so it may not fit exactly with the implementation you have in your organisation if an Integration capability is present already. This is not a problem and there is no need to map the course material to the real-life situation you may be in. Typically, some of the elements will be generic, for instance its highly likely that you have a C4E in some form or another if you have a MuleSoft implementation but surrounding teams may have different names and different ways of working.
Exam topic one and the 6 elements above do a very good job of describing a typical integration project and ways of working.
The second element of the course looks at essential integration concepts and terminology used by MuleSoft Architects and Developers and consists of six subject areas which start to lay the foundations of working with MuleSoft as an integration platform.
1. Learn about the Cloud
2. IPaaS: Integration for the Cloud
3. What is scalability in Cloud Computing
4. Understand Network Security
5. API Basics
6. Getting started with Anypoint Platform
The first three elements of this section start to look at Cloud computing so these elements may be quite familiar to some people and probably cover the majority of MuleSoft implementations but it should be mentioned that this is not the only flavour of MuleSoft implementations so although this section is important for exam purposes, and to be honest for general interest, your own organisation may not be using the Cloud implementation of MuleSoft.
The last two elements of this section really start driving the fundamentals of API development and their use along with the first introduction to the Anypoint platform. Whereas previously the articles and Blog Posts that have been presented could be read in spare time that you have available I would suggest that the engagement changes with these two sections and in fact the last element — Getting started with Anypoint platform — is a reference to another Self-Paced course in its own right which can also be undertaken as a two-day instructor led course. Depending on your previous experience with Integration technology and MuleSoft in particular you may want to consider the instructor led course, at an additional cost, or, if you have colleagues that can assist you in self-paced undertaking of the course this would be a cheaper option.
Now we are starting to understand the MuleSoft Integration architecture and API development process the third exam topic will help us recognise common integration problems, deconstruct them into their fundamental integration use cases, and identify the appropriate technologies to solve them.
In the third module of the course we start to recognize integration problems, deconstruct them into fundamental integration use cases, and identify appropriate technology solutions. We are now returning to Blogs and Whitepapers that can be read in your spare time. There are four elements of this exam topic:
1. Connect Sales Cloud to ERP with Anypoint Platform
2. API-led connectivity
3. iPaaS vs. full lifecycle API Management. Why you need both.
4. Top 10 integration patterns for enterprise use cases
These elements start to look at connecting systems with API connectivity and the patterns that can be used to achieve this connectivity. Integration patterns are the subject matter of books on the topic but in this course only the top 10 integrations are explored at a high level to give us the grounding required for more complex patterns that we will meet later in other courses within the MuleSoft training offerings.
The fourth element of the course looks at explaining the common technical complexities that are central in integration development and presents four articles, blogs and whitepapers plus one extended module for the last element shown below.
1. A primitive look at digital integration
2. Choosing a great API spec saves time and hassle.
3. Everything you need to know about observability in Anypoint Platform
4. Understand the Different Cloud Computing Deployment Models
5. Service mesh together with API management
The fifth and final element of the course provides us with the material to describe the components and benefits of Anypoint Platform for system integration and API management. This section will require more time as, in the subjects given below, we return to Module 2 of the AnyPoint Platform which again can be undertaken as a self-paced course or with an instructor. In addition to the AnyPoint Platform module the course concludes with an introduction to AnyPoint connectors which allow connection to third party API’s, other systems and databases plus details on how connectors work followed by a brief look at AnyPoint Platform deployment options which I addressed briefly above.
1. API lifecycle Management with Anypoint Platform
2. Getting started with Anypoint Platform — Module 2
3. Introduction to AnyPoint connectors
4. Deployment options of AnyPoint Platform
5. API’s and DevOps
Throughout this course the material presented is reinforced through quizzes at the end of modules and, in the final part of the course a full practice exam is provided for you to test your knowledge across the whole of the course.
Having taken the whole course myself and passed the examination I can thoroughly recommend this course as an excellent start to a career in data integration, integration in general and, of course, MuleSoft Integration which is my passion and I hope will soon become yours.
For people wanting more detail please refer to the certification datasheet which can be downloaded from the MuleSoft Website at
https://training.mulesoft.com/downloads?_ga=2.63070827.532146940.1677329314-1905015443.1667982258
