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September 7, 2023
For many companies, enterprise integration is a critical service. Reliable in keeping businesses connected, the technology enables streamlined functionality across IT systems and processes. With a real-time business overview, organizations can respond quickly to market changes while optimizing efficiency (and profitability).
But as with any enterprise solution, there’s always a tipping point where the cost of a product outweighs its business benefit. For many MuleSoft customers, the continued investment simply to use the product is becoming unsustainable, diverting budget and IT resources away from higher-value work. Let’s take a closer look.
Associated Integration Costs
In the Digibee Enterprise Status Integration Report 2023, CIOs, CTOs, systems architects and web developers detailed their integration spending:
While direct investments in products, infrastructure and resources make sense, the most important items are essentially product support, with around 40% of spending dedicated to maintenance and training.
From Digibee’s perspective, this traditional cost model makes no sense. It reflects a critical imbalance between what the customer has paid for and what they will have to pay, with most of the investment going to keeping the product operational. Limited innovation, too much work.
Traditional versus modern cost models
While software licensing is an important part of any MuleSoft deployment, this post focuses on the maintenance, training, and support costs you will need to pay.
To learn more about how MuleSoft's legacy licensing model compares to Digibee, read this technical document.
MuleSoft Maintenance (Traditional)
When it comes to maintenance, MuleSoft customers certainly pay for it, investing significant time and resources to stay up to date on all the different MuleSoft Maintenance Policies.
This complicated scenario includes policies for Mule Runtime (the runtime agent for MuleSoft's Anypoint™ Platform), Anypoint Flex Gateway, MuleSoft Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Anypoint Connectors, and other components.
A good example of inefficiency is complicated end-of-life (EOL) workflows, impacting product features and even functionality. For example, when a version of the Mule Runtime product is being phased out, failure to update on the schedule imposed by MuleSoft degrades product functionality, disabling the ability to create or restart applications in CloudHub, MuleSoft's integration platform.
With few options, software engineers and developers must abandon priority projects to focus on lower-value EOL tasks. This is typical of legacy integration solutions, so it’s no surprise that maintenance was the top integration expense in Digibee’s survey.
Digibee Maintenance (Modern)
We wish we had more to say here, but it's hard to expand on a simple, effective, customer-oriented maintenance and support model.
With Digibee, the subscription cost of our hosted iPaaS includes full support and maintenance, 24/7/365, with streamlined delivery of new features and updates as they happen.
Every time you log into Digibee, you’re accessing the latest, most capable version of technology. No EOL clock ticking, no need to invest additional time or resources. With Digibee, you’re never out of date.
MuleSoft Training (Traditional)
If you are a MuleSoft customer, you are familiar with the large (and ongoing) investment required to enable your software engineers and developers to use the technology.
With seven different MuleSoft certifications (each costing up to $500), mandatory recertification requirements every two years, and significant time commitments that take team members away for weeks at a time, MuleSoft training is undeniably expensive.
But it's not like you have a choice like you should have.”designated customer support contacts”on your team. These are certified software engineers and developers at the API Integration and Associate levels (or more advanced). Without them, MuleSoft support staff will not contact you. In fact, MuleSoft specifies how many advanced, certified people you need before you can speak to them, based on the number of cores in your deployment.
While it may seem easier to simply hire people who are already MuleSoft certified (and pay for recertification cycles), these resources are expensive. According to Salary.com, the average annual salary for MuleSoft developers in the US is $118,728. When you compare this to the average salary of software developers ($76,290), MuleSoft certified developers cost about $42 more per hire. If a company chooses to hire 10 MuleSoft developers, they will pay almost half a million dollars more than the market average.
Digibee Training (Modern)
Digibee customers never pay to learn. Instead, we offer all training for free. Plus, it’s a one-size-fits-all scenario.
With our hosted iPaaS platform, our customers don’t need to continually install and certify on new features and product releases. Instead, we seamlessly deliver our latest innovations as soon as they’re available, right inside the Digibee-hosted iPaaS. Just log in and you’re there. Our dynamic user experience makes it easy for anyone to learn new features without costly and time-consuming training cycles.
MuleSoft Support (Traditional)
Traditional enterprise integration technology has been around for years, as has its supporting model. You know the one. It starts with gold, moves to platinum, and finally to titanium.
While MuleSoft’s support team is happy to be your friend, it comes at a cost. The more you pay, the friendlier (and more approachable) they will be. That could mean 8 hours a day/5 days a week. Or, if you’re willing to pay a lot of money and are dealing with a system outage, the support team will be available to help you 24/7/365.
However, if your incident is less urgent, you’re back to working 8 hours a day/5 days a week. Fortunately, MuleSoft provides a helpful guide where they’ve already assigned severity levels to your issues so you know where you stand and when you can expect a response.
Digibee Support (Modern)
We hate to repeat ourselves, but we're back to our simple, effective, customer-focused maintenance and support model.
With Digibee, the cost of your subscription to our hosted iPaaS includes full support and maintenance, 24/7/365, with streamlined delivery of new features and updates as they happen. Whether you’re dealing with a system outage, need a workaround, or have usage questions – we’re here to help. Just drop us a message or give us a call. Anytime. Really.
Next Steps
My hope is that this blog will be informative – and affirm things you already know about deploying MuleSoft. But we all know that the prospect of ripping out and replacing one platform with another can be more trouble than it’s worth. I can assure you that in this case, the decision is worth it, as many of our former MuleSoft customers have attested.
But don't just take my word for it, start the conversation and find out for yourself. If you want to connect directly, please contact us. To dive deeper into the differences between MuleSoft and Digibee, check out this white paper, MuleSoft vs Digibee: People, Price and Productivity.
If you are interested in more information about Digibee, please visit our website or book a demo. Anyway, good luck on your integration journey!
