The long-term success of a technology ultimately lies on the strength of its community. At MuleSoft, we are fortunate to have a vibrant community that has many members who contribute by answering questions, sharing best practices, and organizing meetups. Their knowledge and effort made the experience of building solutions with MuleSoft simpler and more rewarding.
In this series of blogs, we want to highlight individuals who made significant contributions to the community, as nominated by their peers. We previously featured Anirban Sen Chowdhary, and this time we sat down and talked to Felipe Ocadiz (Twitter: @focadiz, DZone: focadiz). Here is his story.
1. Tell us about yourself. What do you do?
I am an Integration Engineer at Twitter, responsible for designing, building, and operating Twitter’s production integration infrastructure. Specifically, I design and implement Mule applications that connect Twitter’s internal systems. Before Twitter, I was an Integration Engineer at UCSF, doing similar projects but with healthcare software systems.
2. What kind of problems do you solve with Anypoint Platform?
I started using Anypoint Platform for almost all of my projects a few years ago. I do everything––from gathering requirements from users to designing, developing, testing, and deploying integrations.
During this time, I’ve built complex integrations composed of a wide variety of applications–– synchronizing real-time patient data sync between Epic (a popular electronic health record system) and SQL Server to provisioning users from Epic to Salesforce and optimizing applications to speed up execution time.
I have implemented a variety of great solutions. One time, I improved the execution time of an application from an hour and forty minutes to three minutes, using DataWeave and the Salesforce Bulk API.
One of the coolest solutions I’ve implemented is redesigning an application that ensures advertisers stay on budget. The app synchronizes budget data from Salesforce and compares to the actual spend in Oracle. Initially, the application caused memory issues and data inconsistencies when processing even a few records. When I investigated, I noticed several inefficient patterns, which were causing many unnecessary calls to Salesforce.
I realized that with some clever design and DataWeave transformations, I could get the data from Salesforce, transform the payload using Dataweave, and send the result to Oracle––all in one single transaction. My redesign reduced most of the memory and CPU waste, it also eliminated data inconsistencies. This application is now capable of handling over ten thousand records in a minute.
3. What do you like about Anypoint Platform?
I like the way Anypoint Platform helps companies to integrate different systems easily. Anypoint Platform has a lot of pre-built components (e.g., Salesforce Connector, HTTP Connector, and batch module). With these connectors, we can just drag and drop to quickly build an integration. We can implement complex logic very quickly, because you just have to change parameters instead of re-writing code from scratch. Since APIs are becoming more relevant for businesses, delivering products and services faster is now a necessity – and Anypoint Platform is the perfect platform to achieve this.
4. How did you learn to use Anypoint Platform?
Prior to UCSF, I was Integration Engineer for one of the largest Telecommunications companies in Mexico. I got an opportunity to learn Mule from MuleSoft’s training website and then got a chance to join UCSF. I was then recruited by Twitter because of my Mule knowledge. There was no turning back after that, I loved the product and started attending as many classes as I could and also worked harder to get certified.
Classes helped me a lot to design and implement Mule Applications based on the best practices.
The Champions Program is also a good way to learn on my own time. I build my skills by taking challenges, which help me get deeper and solid knowledge. The advocate of the month shows important contributions, I have found some good tips there; specifically, I found a lot of good tips about the HL7 Connector. I used the points to get vouchers, not training, maybe I’ll use them to take the Advanced Dataweave class next time!
Of course, there are many community members who have helped me tremendously. Some time ago, I learned a lot from David Dossot, he’s still some kind of hero to me. At work, I learned a lot from Swarnim Ranjitkar and Danni Pugeda when I started using Mule. The articles written by community members are helpful as well, they can be found under the “Advocate of the month” challenge in Mulesoft Champions Program.
5. What advice would you give to someone who is just getting started with Anypoint Platform?
Mulesoft U. Development Fundamentals is the best place to start, that class is great (you can find when the next class is on the training courses website).
Next, share your experience with the community! You can do this by writing blogs or speaking at local meetups. I am starting the SF chapter of the MuleSoft Meetup, our first event is planned for September 27th.
You can also earn points in the Champions program and use them to redeem training or certification. The certifications have also helped me to get noticed in the marketplace. I have a number of certifications, including the MCA – Solution Design Specialist, MCD – API Design Associate (RAML 0.8), MCD – Integration and API Associate, MCD – Integration Professional, and more.
Join the MuleSoft community!
Inspired by Felipe’s story? If you are building microservices, creating APIs, or solving integration problems then you should become part of the part of the MuleSoft community! There are many ways to be involved – you can answer questions on the forums, complete technical challenges in the Champions Program, join a Meetup group near you, or start a new Meetup group in your city.
