The benefits of bringing DevOps tools into your IT Organization are many and well documented. Regardless of the technologies in play, continuous delivery and release automation help teams deliver higher quality software faster, and with less cost and risk by reducing or eliminating manual and scripted processes and adding repeatability and consistency. Different technologies (such as Oracle E-Business Suite or Containers) have different benefits when utilizing a DevOps Platform like FlexDeploy, and Mulesoft is no different.
We will be exploring some common questions and challenges that come up with Mule implementations, and how FlexDeploy addresses those questions.
1. Moving Between Cloud and On-Prem
What do I need to do to change my deployment process when I move between CloudHub and on-premises environments?
With FlexDeploy, the answer is nothing.
MuleSoft provides flexibility and choice for deployments across on-premises and cloud implementations. The same Mule deploy workflow built in FlexDeploy works whether deploying to cloud, on-prem, ARM, or run-time agent. That means you don’t need to worry about the administrative details like where you’re deploying, but can instead focus on the value-add details like what you’re deploying.
2. Property Management
How do I manage properties for third-party applications/databases, and how do I maintain the passwords in all the Mule APIs that use them, so I can update them together?
With Mule, you have connection details, usernames, and passwords for different services, and need to be able to pass them into the application. When a service account password is changed, you need to update the password in all the relevant APIs.
With FlexDeploy, the operations team can easily manage environments and Mule instances. Managing environment properties like usernames and passwords from within the FlexDeploy UI is painless.
There is no need to keep these values within your Mule source code, check them into SCM, or paste them on the company Wiki. FlexDeploy automatically injects these properties while deploying to each environment.
And what about when an internal standard is to change third-party application passwords at a set interval, e.g. change passwords monthly?
You can easily use REST APIs to automate password updates across systems and within FlexDeploy, eliminating the need to manually update the passwords each month. FlexDeploy also offers direct out-of-the-box integration with multiple credential providers like CyberArk, Azure Key Vault, etc enabling users to manage all their credentials in a single place.
3. Security
Are my secure properties really secured?
FlexDeploy has a fine-grained permission model so that groups can be configured to match the roles and responsibilities of any organization. You can configure FlexDeploy so users with the correct access can store passwords, and those without permissions cannot read or write. Those passwords or other secret properties are passed to servers in a secure way so only those with permission to read them can read them. Secure properties can be defined as Encrypted in FlexDeploy and they will be secured during the plugin operation and hidden in all logs.
4. Dependency Management
How do I manage dependencies with other Mule applications and other enterprise applications?
When a Mule application is dependent on other components or other Mule applications, it is easy to maintain those dependencies using FlexDeploy. By setting a project priority, you can ensure dependent projects build and deploy in the correct order.
5. Deployment Across Environments
How can I deploy applications across environments?
FlexDeploy offers release automation features which orchestrate and automate the provisioning, build, deploy, and release of application versions across your environment pipeline. With these release orchestration features, a company can achieve visibility into the entire release pipeline to improve planning and scheduling of software updates. This visibility allows for process streamlining, operational efficiency maximization, and early identification of errors or problems before the application goes live.
Release orchestration also provides the framework for process control, helping a company to improve reliability and prepare for compliance and audits. This gives teams a consistent process that increases overall productivity and saves them time and headaches.
The Value of FlexDeploy for MuleSoft
Mule is not immune to the benefits of bringing in a DevOps tool. FlexDeploy has a great story for this popular integration and API management platform. The Mule-specific benefits are important, but only tell half of the story. The entire team benefits from implementing continuous delivery, release automation, and other DevOps practices.
Using FlexDeploy means you can enjoy faster, more reliable development cycles across your IT team.
