1.0 Thank you for attending

Again I can't thank you enough for taking the time to attend this monthly meetup. Today we started the meet up on time and we dive straight into our discussion topics.

2.0 MuleSoft’s Credential Vault

We talked about credential vault and how we could use it to encrypt the configuration values we have in our configuration files. The following link will bring you to the presentation slides that i have used.

Credential Vault Slides Link

If you have missed today’s meeting and am still interested in finding out how you could better secure sensitive information you have stored in your configuration (.properties file), then have a read a the following article.

Mule Credential Vault

2.0 MuleSoft’s Resource Polling & Watermarking

The next topic that we have discussed about is resource polling and watermarking. Click on the following link access the presentation slides.

Resource Polling & Watermarking Slides

Here we talked about how you could not only use mulesoft as a tool to create and expose new API but also use it to synchronize disparate legacy endpoints. We have created a hypothetical scenario to synchronize employee data to a disparate endpoint via a mule application, and have also created a randomizer to create error on an ad hoc basis, thus simulating an unreliable endpoint.

We have also talked about in the event of an exception scenario how we could handle the errors by ensuring the polling scope watermark is updated correctly. The following is an article about what was demoed during our meetup.

Resource Polling & Watermarking Article

Relevant to this article we also talked briefly about MuleSoft's default managed object store to serialized/persist watermark data. We need watermark data to be persisted so that if the server crashes or if we restart the server, the mule application would be able to restart polling from where it left off (prior to the mule server restart). If watermark data is not persisted, in the event of a restart the resource polling will start from the beginning.

3.0 Bonus Topics

We also briefly talk about the MuleSoft architecture and dig deeper into the difference between Virtual Machines and also Containers. We further talk about the viability of using containers to run on-prem mule applications because, the Mule integration framework is lightweight in nature and it is perfectly suited for containers like Dockers and Kubernetes.

Mule’s on documentation recommended running on-prem Mule Servers on Kubernetes.

If you have an azure subscription and want to set up a linux server to play around with containers and on-prem mule instances, I have an article that would guide you step by step on setting up an ubuntu server on azure.

Standing up Ubuntu Linux VM in Azure Article

4.0 Feedbacks

There were a lot of questions being asked today, and it is good to ask questions, it is from the questions that we learn.

Some of the feedbacks I have received are as per the following (no names mentioned :P):

No	Feedback	Our Response
1.	Need to provide food e.g. Pizza	We totally get where you are coming from, it's after work and you are attending this meetup before having any dinner. We will try to talk to our sponsors to see what could be done around this area.
2.	I am at a beginner’s level - to me this is something I need to look at in my own time to fully understand. So just keep that in mind.	I totally get you. Yes I will elaborate more on the fundamentals in the coming meetup. For a start have a go at the following free course. MuleSoft.U Development Fundamentals - UPDATED for Crowd release Download and set-up Anypoint studio and have a play with it, compile all your question and blast them to me during the meet up. Download Link
3.	Make it more technical do deep dive into the more technical aspects	I will try to do that in the coming meet ups, but I am also challenged with time constraints, if you want to know more technical things about mulesoft I suggest you compile a list of question and post it to me during our meetup, this is so that either me or one of our participants could elaborate further on the more technical aspects of our discussion.
4.	Create quizzes for the Meetup	I will try to do that, I need volunteers for this, currently it's a one man show running this meetup, if you are interested to be one of the volunteers please do let me know, and we could distribute presentation topics and even quiz creation. There is a saying “We exist not just for ourselves but also for other people who depends on us.” The more volunteers I have the better the meetup will be.

5.0 What topics would you like to address (in the meetup)?

No	Feedback	Our Response
1.	Talk more about integration and systems	Ok if I hear you correctly, you want me to have more topics on integration designs and architecture, yes definitely would put that in on the upcoming meetups
2.	Talk about design strategy and how to use MuleSoft correctly	This would be a challenge for me, I don't yet claim to be an authoritative figure on how to correctly use MuleSoft but I could definitely talk about how I am using it and we could open it up for debate and discussion. Unless of course someone who is more senior in terms of MuleSoft experience is willing to take up this role of enlightening us.
3.	Talk about Exposing Web API	Good recommendation, I will definitely have this as one of a topic to talk about.
4.	Talk about small project workshops example to simplify and demonstrate how the MuleSoft integration framework works.	Yes, I could do this if everybody is after it but again you will get this in the free training all you need to do is to register for the free trainings in MuleSoft trainings. Training Homepage Link

6.0 Thank you all for coming

Again I want to thank you all for taking the time to come to the meet up, networking with each other and learning cools stuff, if you bring your laptops on your next meetup, I could show you around the Anypoint IDE.

Our next two new meetup will be on the following dates

https://meetups.mulesoft.com/christchurch/