Mule (software)

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Mule
Latest release	2.0.1 / April 30, 2008 (2008-04-30); 43 days ago
Written in	Java
OS	Cross-platform (JVM)
Genre	Enterprise Service Bus
License	CPAL license
Website	http://mule.mulesource.org/

Mule is a light-weight Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and integration framework . It can handle services and applications using disparate transport and messaging technologies. The platform itself is Java-based but can broker interactions between other platforms such as .Net using Web Services, Sockets or AMQP implementations.

The architecture claims it is scalable, highly distributable object broker that can seamlessly handle interactions across legacy systems, in-house application and almost all modern transports and protocols.

1 Features
2 Concepts
3 Supporting Tools
4 See Also
5 External links

[edit] Features

Some of the key features of Mule are:

Pluggable Connectivity, out of the box support for JMS, JDBC, TCP, UDP, multicast, http, servlet, SMTP, POP3, file, XMPP, and over 50 more.
Powerful Message Routing capabilities
Flexibility in deployment topologies (ESB, ESN, Hub and Spoke, Client server)
Web Services and WS-* support using Apache CXF, XFire, Axis and Glue
Integration with JBoss and other leading App servers
Spring Integration
Transformation Layer
Integrated Security Management

[edit] Concepts

Mule supports routing and message auditing capabilities that are defined in the highly regarded Enterprise Integration Patterns book by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf.

Non-Intrusive approach. Any object can be managed by the ESB container.

[edit] Supporting Tools

Eclipse IDE called MuleIDE, which is a set of Eclipse plug-ins for developing, deploying and managing Mule projects.
MuleForge provides a hosted project environment for Mule extensions such as Transports Modules, examples and core extensions. MuleForge provides a complete project management environment using Atlassian tools.

Mule has reasonably good integration engine, but the community edition lacks the support for Advanced Management interfaces. MuleSource offers an Enterprise Edition of Mule that provides a rich Management and Monitoring tool, MuleHQ.

Similar Products exist, both Open Source and Commercial.