MuleSoft has today released an Eclipse-based graphical design tool for its own open-source enterprise service bus (ESB). Mule Studio is described as the first ESB design tool that features a 'round-trip' editing capability that enables developers to design and edit ESB application interchangeably in the graphical tool or in XML.
The company says that developers using its product can now build integration applications using a graphical environment — and retain the visibility and control of the underlying code.
"Until now, ESB developers were forced to choose between the 'black-box' approaches of proprietary vendors like TIBCO, Oracle, and IBM, which add complexity and obscure the integration code and 'doodleware' tools which are good for getting started, but are not useful for real development or ongoing maintenance," said Mateo Almenta-Reca, director of product management at MuleSoft. "With Mule Studio's round-trip editing technology, Mule ESB leapfrogs these approaches and brings a new level of openness and control to graphical integration development."
Mule Studio's round-trip editing capability was made possible by Mule ESB's flow-based architecture, enabling a graphical representation to map to the underlying XML configuration code. Other open source ESB tools are only useful for getting started and creating a simple XML, while real ongoing development must happen through code.
Legacy proprietary integration stacks, on the other hand, use their graphical tools to hide underlying complexity, so everything must be done in the graphical environment, which can be frustrating for developers and makes resolving configuration issues difficult and risky.
Mule Studio users can also take advantage of speedy graphical integration design — with no need to learn XML to get started, users can take advantage of Mule Studio's graphical designer alone to create Mule ESB configurations.
Mule applications built in Mule Studio can be tested directly within the design environment and deployed to a Mule ESB Enterprise application repository with a single click.
