Learn more about MuleSoft Manchester Meetup group: meetups.mulesoft.com/manchester/

1. Manchester, UK | 31 March, 2020
Manchester MuleSoft Meetup #3
Francis
Integration Analyst
Saint-Gobain Building
Distribution
Cally
IT Delivery Manager
Studio Retail
Andy
Systems Team Manager
Studio Retail
Venkata
Integration Developer
Rathbone Brothers

2. Design practices to accelerate
API delivery using Anypoint Platform
Francis Edwards, Integration Analyst at Saint-Gobain Building Distribution

3. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
Introductions
3
• About Francis Edwards:
– I’ve worked for Saint-Gobain for three years, initially providing integrations between
different corporate systems as well as to external third parties. I’ve replaced numerous
file transfer integrations, automated scripts & exposed APIs to existing or new services
for the Digital Transformation strategy.
– I completed the RAML 0.8 exam without revision, but took a few ‘non’ open book
attempts at the exam following the 2 day API Design course to work out what I
needed to learn.
– I’ve used the Design Centre and Anypoint Exchange to create and publish RAML
specifications and built subsequent implementations using the
maven-dependency-plugin
• About Saint-Gobain Building Distribution:
– Saint-Gobain Building Distribution is the company that bring together a number of
suppliers & brands that supply material & tools into the construction industry
– The company is part of the wider Saint-Gobain Group & uses IT infrastructure that is
both within UK datacentres & IT services headquartered in France.

4. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
4
• Useful Resources
– There are a number of books that can help learn
API design and RAML particularly – Manning: The
Design of Web APIs & Undisturbed REST
– API Workbench is a package that can be installed
into ATOM editor
– Design Centre at Anypoint Platform
– The RAML Specification – GitHub project
– The resources at RAML Org
– The API Design Course from Mulesoft Training

5. API Design Practices to Accelerate Development
RAML 1.0

6. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
6
• Requirement 1 – Anypoint Studio
– The first parts of a RAML definition can be used to
provide configuration details to developer – this
includes both the http-requester and http-listener
– Prevents typing errors and assigns correct testing
details
– item definitions aid with using ‘as :String’ or
Integer.parseInt(message.inboundProperties.ID)
functions when declaring values

7. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
7
• Requirement 2 – Anypoint Studio
– Flows can be generated with payload stubs using
the imported RAML specification
– Need to use types with embedded examples to
populate payload stubs

8. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
8
• Requirement 3 – Design Centre Console
– Requires to root element to be valid and ideally have all code
in the specification to render the console
– Requires that securitySchemes defined and a securedBy
element populated by at least null to provide console
functionality
– The documentation element allows a readme file to be
included in the console that can give instructions for expected
behavior and information in the described resource

9. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
9
• Requirement 4 – Anypoint Exchange
– Requires the title element to create the maven artefact
name
– Requires the version to populate the main version
grouping of the published Anypoint Exchange artefact
– The documentation element is incorporated within the
Anypoint Exchange artefact and can be cut and pasted
into the artefact page
– baseUri and resource methods auto-populate in an
artefact description pane, together with instance
information

10. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
10
• Requirement 5 – API Manager
– The title element is taken from the title in
Anypoint Exchange which is populated from the
original element
– version required to differentiate API
implementation and produce unique
autodiscovery string
– baseUri required to populate the location of the
API implementation

11. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
11
• Requirement 6 – Service Contract
– Examples data can be included initially to aid with
setting output payloads, but also provide errors
– Object definitions can be used to provide meta-data
for transformations
– RAML minimally describes the API rather than like
JSON schemas that fully describe objects
– Objects are used as input into query-parms
expressions. It is easier to carry out null checking
on JSON objects than to remember to so this for
each query-param used in a HTTP requester

12. All contents © MuleSoft Inc.
RAML Integrating Design with Development
12
Demo Time (kindly download the demo project in .zip here)
• Anypoint Design Centre
– This RAML project describes the
access of objects from a resource
and demonstrates the use of
RAML
– My main recommendation being
that rather than specifying
queryParams, that objects
describe instead what can be
searched via the queryString
element

13. See you next time
Please send topic suggestions to the organizer

14. Our story so far:
key learns from successfully adopting the
Anypoint Platform, warts and all
Cally Clifft, IT Delivery Manager &
Andy Whaley, Systems Team Manager at Studio Retail

15. MuleSoft Adoption
•Our journey so far ……..
• What we’ve done
• What we’ve learned

16. MuleSoft as a Strategy
vs

17. MuleSoft Trailblazing

18. Integration Team / Community
Team Strategy Training

19. Training / enablement

20. API Reference architecture

21. API fragments

22. API Specification

23. Dev Ops

25. Where we are now

26. Dataweave 2.0
Venkata Nallapuneni, Integration Developer at Rathbone Brothers

27. 27
It's time for us to be home. We’re staying
home to stay alive. This is not the end
Community Message

28. 28
► DataWeave language is introduced in Mule 4.0
► Replaces Mule Expression Language (MEL)
► Supported by Anypoint Studio version 7 onwards
► Features
► New functions/methods are added
► Improved power and method of transformation
► Simplified syntaxes
► Accessibility
► Ease of Learning
► Use of Data weave reduced the need for multiple transformers
► Process flow are more simplified compared to Mule 3 versions
Background and Overview

29. Understanding Capabilities
Transformation and Functions
29
► Many transformers are deprecated in Mule 4.0, as data weave replaces type transformations
► Functions can be defined in any way as required
► Operators are now functions
► Simplified transformation using data weave
► Transforms complex data and binary data can also be extracted from an expression
► Type coercion errors are reduced comparatively
► DataWeave language can be used in most components like http request, file connector, database etc.

30. Use Dataweave expression in Variable
Transformation and Functions
30
Transforms type and we can also define data type within same component

31. Map and MapObject
Mapping - The Power of Transformation
31
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
Socrates
► Map Transforms items from the array list
ex: ["Mulesoft","Developer","Venkata Nallapuneni"]
payload map ((item, index) ->(index):item )
output: [{"0": "Mulesoft"},{"1": "Developer"},{"2": "Venkata Nallapuneni" }]
► MapObject Transforms Object using key-value pair
ex: {"Company": "Rathbones", "name": "Venkata Nallapuneni", "title": "Developer"}
payload mapObject (value, key, index) -> { (index) : { (key):value} }
output: {"0": {"Company": "Rathbones"},"1": {"name": "Venkata Nallapuneni"},"2": {"title": "Developer"}}

32. “There’s nothing in this universe that can’t be explained.
Eventually.”
House MD

33. Connectors and DataWeave
Define DataWeave expressions and mime types in connectors

34. Accessing parameters is simplified in DataWeave 2
Simplifications and Inbound Properties
34
► Inbound properties are changed to attributes and outbound properties are removed
► Eg:
attributes.headers.id instead of message.inboundproperties.id
attributes.queryParams.company (camel casing for all attributes)
► Variables can be easily accessed in data weave 2.0 –replaced as variable (session vars and record vars are
removed)
► Access these parameters in any component that supports data weave expression

35. “The thing we all had in common wasn’t muscle; it was the will to do
whatever it takes.”
Chris Kyle, American Sniper

36. DataWeave 2 Modules and types

37. DataWeave types 2.0
37
Dataweave types are improved in every
version, have powerful capabilities
► dw::Core
Functions such as : camelize,capitalize etc.
► dw::Crypto
► dw::Runtime
► dw::core::Strings
► dw::core::URL
► dw::core::Binaries
► Etc.. Ex: stream a pdf document
► Create your own custom modules
A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.
George S. Patton

38. What's New
38
New Data Formats Introduced
► Avro (application/avro)
► ndjson (application/x-ndjson)
► Java Properties (text/x-java-properties)
► Joins and improved functionalities in each dataweave types
Ex: Right Join, Inner Join and Left join can be used within dataweave
► Data types are improved in every module

39. Conclusion
39
Useful Links and Resources:
► https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule-runtime/4.1/dataweave
► https://help.mulesoft.com/s/forum
► https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule-runtime/4.2/dataweave-cookbook
Blogs:
► https://blogs.mulesoft.com/dev/mule-dev/dataweave-2-2-arrays-part1/

40. 40
Ven
Mulesoft Developer

41. See you next time
Please send topic suggestions to the organizer

42. Thank you!
Manchester, UK | 31 March, 2020
MuleSoft Inc.I www.mulesoft.com
Ricston Ltd. | www.ricston.com