Software and supply chain management deliver rapid workflows with MuleSoft
Streamlining application integrations and deployment lower TCO and TCI
A leading U.S. software and supply chain management firm created through a portfolio of acquisitions, manages more than 100 applications in over 25 platforms with various data models, formats and integrations, including database, SOAP, REST, JMS and custom.
The firm’s unique partner network system allows users connectivity and visibility into key information. It sought a way to rapidly deliver business workflows between internal and external applications. The company also wanted to develop fast-paced ‘in the field’ integrations between customers’ back-end systems and customizations of existing workflows.
With an overall architecture strategy in place, the firm asked NTT DATA’s MuleSoft experts to develop solutions that would cater to this strategy.
Business Needs
Due to its diverse landscape, the management firm hosted applications in its own cloud, as well as in Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and customer-specific data centers. Customer systems need to securely connect to numerous data centers that could average almost 35 systems feeding data into and out of the firm. Incoming transactional and bulk data to applications could range from several megabytes to several gigabytes, with multiple systems having their own representation or native format for its data.
Rapidly delivering business workflows between internal and external applications, as well as in-the-field integrations between customer systems and existing workflows, would reduce the total cost of ownership and total capital investment for customer integrations.
Outcomes
- Creates component adapters to facilitate integration while maintaining canonical data models
- Customizes MuleSoft Connectors add abstraction and enable rapid integration
- Develops a testing framework and containerized services capable of end-to-end regression
The solutions and services that the MuleSoft team developed have helped the firm streamline application integrations throughout its diverse system landscape.
Solution
The firm developed its own unique partner network system that allows users connectivity and visibility to key information. Together, the teams developed solutions that cater to the company’s overarching strategy, including various adapters, MuleSoft Connectors, containerized services, an integration testing framework and a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) framework. These component adapters facilitate integration to specific products while adopting standard canonical GS1 data models. This was an essential aspect in the project, as it decreases the time of development among the firm’s diverse product landscape.
The adapters chosen included Mule solutions for the firm’s wide portfolio of products, including Channel Clustering, Allocation, Enterprise Planning (EKBS), Size Scaling, Category Management, Assortment Planning, Luminate Control Tower (LCT) and Enterprise Knowledge Base System (EKBS). As part of these products, the adapters also facilitate rapid customizations for customer-specific integrations.
Mule custom connectors add abstraction to the firm’s products, enabling rapid integration. Another advantage to custom connectors is that they can be added easily into Mule applications using visual plug-in components. Understanding this, the MuleSoft team developed connectors for EKBS, Bulk Data format transformation and Category Knowledge Base (CKB) to assist in rapid integration.
Finally, an integration testing framework and containerized services were added to facilitate end-to-end test scenario regression for several deployment components. The CI/CD framework facilitates configurations and deployment automations for future business requirements.
The solutions and services that the MuleSoft team developed have helped the firm streamline application integrations throughout its diverse system landscape. Moreover, the integration testing framework and containerized services streamline deployment as part of an overall CI/CD framework, allowing the firm to configure and deploy automations faster and easier than before.
About the case study
A leading software and supply chain management firm leverages MuleSoft to streamline application integrations, configuration and deployment faster and easier than before.