Mule is the most widely used open source ESB-with millions of downloads- providing an alternative to expensive commercial options. Mule in Action is a comprehensive tutorial designed for working Java developers. This authoritative book explores the architecture and the main features of version Mule 2 through numerous running examples. It starts with a quick overview of ESB technology and a bit of Mule history-including the key changes between Mule 1.x and Mule 2. Readers learn to configure Mule and then get straight to the good stuff-putting Mule to work.
Because the core of an ESB system is handling message traffic, the book dives into the way Mule handles data with chapters on sending and receiving, routing, and transforming data. Next, it takes a close look at Mule's standard components and how you can roll out custom ones. The book closes with a set of chapters on the nuts and bolts of working with Mule. Readers can take Mule farther by learning techniques for testing, performance tuning, BPM orchestration, and even a touch of Groovy scripting.
Customer Reviews: Mule in ActionFebruary 26, 2010 B. Baron(falujah) Nobody has reviewed Mule in Action so let me be the first. Overall I can recommend this book for an engineer tasked with implementing an integration project using Mule. It will save you a ton of time getting comfortable assembling the many moving parts of this beast. That is, as long as you are already comfortable with JMS, web services or whatever other technology stack you're messing with.
The subject matter is obviously very dry, but the authors do a fine job of presenting the material in a readable, but very technically accurate way. They use the case study of a fictional solution as service outfit called Clood, to illustrate scenarios in a more concrete way. This technique is effective, although an appendix with an overall description of Clood's requirements and design would have been helpful.
I'm giving this a 4 because of what it lacks: a deeper introductory section. The concept level overview is fine, but after that, there needs to be a breadth first tutorial outlining how to start up and implement a simple, but non-trivial example application. A scenario that reads data from a file, passes through a transformer, a filter, and then route to a couple of outbound endpoints (JMS and WS perhaps) would have really broken the ice for me. As written, you go directly from deploying a pre-made echo sample that ships with mule, to the nitty-gritty sections cataloging the connectors, routers, transformers, etc. I found myself bouncing all over the book trying to implement a simple, but non-trivial example. But maybe that's just my learning style talking, which tends to be impatient.
