MCIA – Level 1 MuleSoft Certified Integration Architect

Description
MuleSoft Certified Integration Architect – Level 1 A MuleSoft Certified Integration Architect should be able to drive and be responsible for an organization’s Anypoint Platform implementation and the technical quality, governance (ensuring compliance), and operationalization of the integration solutions. The MCIA – Level 1 exam validates that an architect has the required knowledge and skills to work with technical and non-technical stakeholders to translate functional and non-functional requirements into integration interfaces and implementations. S/he should be able to:

Create the high-level design of integration solutions and guide implementation teams on the choice of Mule components and patterns to use in the detailed design and implementation.
Select the deployment approach and configuration of Anypoint Platform with any of the available deployment options (MuleSoft-hosted or customer-hosted control plane and runtime plane).
Design Mule applications for any of the available deployment options of the Anypoint Platform runtime plane.
Apply standard development methods covering the full development lifecycle (project preparation, analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and support) to ensure solution quality.
Advise technical teams on performance, scalability, reliability, monitoring and other operational concerns of integration solutions on Anypoint Platform.
Design reusable assets, components, standards, frameworks, and processes to support and facilitate API and integration projects.

Note: Approximately 10% of the exam is specific to Mule 4.

A downloadable data sheet for the exam can be found here.

Format: Multiple-choice, closed book, proctored online or in a testing center
Length: 58 questions
Duration: 120 minutes (2 hours)
Pass score: 70%
Language: English

The exam can be taken a maximum of 5 times, with a 24 hour wait between each attempt.

The exam can be purchased with one of the following. Each includes a coupon for one free retake.

1.5 Flexible Training Credits (FTC)

A voucher obtained by attending the instructor-led Anypoint Platform Architecture: Integration Solutions course

Additional retakes (attempts 3 to 5) are $250 or 1 FTC and do not come with a free retake.

The certification expires two years from the date of passing.

The best preparation for the exam is to take the instructor-led Anypoint Platform Architecture: Integration Solutions course. Candidates should be familiar with all of the content in the course and be able to apply the concepts.

The following resources are available to assist in a candidate’s preparation:

Instructor-led training: Anypoint Platform Architecture: Integration Solutions

Recommended as the most effective and efficient method of preparation
5-day class
Private and public classes available
Onsite and online classes available
Includes a certification voucher for this exam
Practice quiz
20+ multiple-choice questions
Comparable difficulty to the proctored exam

Topics
The exam validates that the candidate can perform the following tasks.

Note: ARC:INT is the acronym for the Anypoint Platform Architecture: Integration Solutions course.

Configuring and Provisioning Anypoint Platform
Configure business groups, roles, and permissions within an Anypoint Platform organization
Select Anypoint Platform identity management vs client management for the correct purpose
Identify common and distinguishing features and usage scenarios for CloudHub VPCs and public worker cloud
Suggest number of Mule runtimes for a Mule application given performance targets and HA requirements
Define a performant and HA deployment architecture for Mule applications in on-prem deployments
Select monitoring options for all available Anypoint Platform deployment options

ARC:INT Module 5
ARC:INT Module 7
ARC:INT Module 9
ARC:INT Module 10

Selecting Integration Styles
Given a description of an integration problem, identify the most appropriate integration style
When designing an integration solution, select the most appropriate interface/data technology and interface definition language for all integration interfaces
Design parts of an integration solution using general message-based integration or event-driven architecture (EDA) using message brokers or streaming technologies
Recognize scenarios where message correlation is necessary

ARC:INT Module 2
ARC:INT Module 3
ARC:INT Module 4
ARC:INT Module 5
ARC:INT Module 7

Designing and Documenting Enterprise Integration Architecture
For a given organization and their preferences and constraints, select the most appropriate Anypoint Platform deployment option
Design parts of an integration solution using any SOA-based integration approach
Identify the information that should be included in any integration solution architecture document
Simplify a large-scale enterprise-wide integration architecture so that it can be effectively communicated to semi-technical stakeholders
Identify the persistence mechanism and durability used for watermarks in different Mule runtime deployment options
Identify integrations scenarios for which the use of batch would be beneficial
Design for short or long retries using reconnection strategies
Identify common and distinguishing features and usage scenarios for CloudHub DLBs and public CloudHub LBs

ARC:INT Module 1
ARC:INT Module 3
ARC:INT Module 7
ARC:INT Module 8

Architecting Resilient and Performant Integration Solutions
Recognize requirements that are best addressed using transactions (single-resource and XA)
Define transaction considerations where needed in a solution design including the requirement for an external transaction coordinator
Specify the connectors that can participate in the different types of transactions
Recognize the purpose of various fault-tolerance strategies for remote calls
Design parts of an integration solution using general batch-oriented integration or ETL to/from files or databases
Determine if horizontal scaling will help a Mule application meet its performance targets

ARC:INT Module 5
ARC:INT Module 7
ARC:INT Module 8
ARC:INT Module 11
ARC:INT Module 12
ARC:INT Module 13
ARC:INT Module 14

Handling Events and Messages

Identify scenarios in which to use different storage mechanisms including persistent and non-persistent ObjectStore, in-memory ObjectStore, cluster-replicated in-memory OS, hashtables, and disk-persisted OS
Select suitable storage mechanisms for IDs (correlation IDs, message IDs, transaction IDs) in Mule applications deployed to CloudHub or on-prem
Use Mule 4 constructs to make effective use of Enterprise Integration Patterns
Use streaming to handle large payloads within Mule applications
Predict the runtime behavior of messages queued internally for processing for load balancing or to achieve reliability
Predict the runtime load balancing behavior of messages sent to the public URL of a Mule application deployed to multiple CloudHub workers

ARC:INT Module 8
ARC:INT Module 9
ARC:INT Module 12
ARC:INT Module 13
ARC:INT Module 14

Designing Applications with Anypoint Connectors
For a given Mule 4 connector (Premium, Select, and MuleSoft Certified), identify its purpose, the network protocol it uses, and whether it supports incoming or outgoing types of connections
Specify the requirements that would require the use of domain-level connectors
Specify when a Mule application would require persistence and select an appropriate persistence solution
Identify possible failures when a component (such as an API client) invokes a remote component (such as an API implementation)

ARC:INT Module 2
ARC:INT Module 3
ARC:INT Module 4
ARC:INT Module 8
ARC:INT Module 10
ARC:INT Module 12

Designing Networks for Anypoint Connectors
For a given connector, recognize whether it will typically connect to/from an external system across organizational boundaries
Use transport protocols and connectors correctly and coherently when and where applicable
Match protocols with networking constraints and API layers
When incoming and outgoing HTTPS connections with mutual authentication are used, identify what certificates are needed in what stores in different environments

ARC:INT Module 3
ARC:INT Module 7
ARC:INT Module 8
ARC:INT Module 15
ARC:INT Module 16

Handling Integration Implementation Lifecycles
Identify the Anypoint Platform components where various types of API-related assets and artifacts are maintained or published
Recognize the advantages and disadvantages of storing and managing properties in properties files in Mule applications
For a given API or integration, identify the steps that need to be taken in order for testing to occur

ARC:INT Module 6
ARC:INT Module 7
ARC:INT Module 10

Implementing DevOps
Specify the purpose of various MuleSoft products in the area of DevOps/CI/CD
Identify differences, advantages, and disadvantages of DevOps based on deployable Mule applications versus container images
Formulate an effective source code management strategy including branching and merging
Specify testing strategies that use both mocking and invoking of external dependencies

ARC:INT Module 6
ARC:INT Module 7
ARC:INT Module 10

Operating and Monitoring Integration Solutions
Specify the type of metrics for API invocations and API implementations that can be monitored with Anypoint Platform
Identify metrics and operations exposed by default via JMX
Identify differences in monitoring and alerting between customer-hosted and MuleSoft-hosted Anypoint Platform
Identify ways of transmitting IDs between components in remote interactions and capture this in the interface design of the remote interaction

QUESTION 1
A global organization operates datacenters in many countries. There are private network links between these
datacenters because all business data (but NOT metadata) must be exchanged over these private network
connections.
The organization does not currently use AWS in any way.
The strategic decision has just been made to rigorously minimize IT operations effort and investment going forward.
What combination of deployment options of the Anypoint Platform control plane and runtime plane(s) best
serves this organization at the start of this strategic journey?

A. MuleSoft-hosted Anypoint Platform control plane CloudHub Shared Worker Cloud in multiple AWS regions
B. MuleSoft-hosted Anypoint Platform control plane Customer-hosted runtime plane in multiple AWS regions
C. MuleSoft-hosted Anypoint Platform control plane Customer-hosted runtime plane in each datacenter
D. Anypoint Platform – Private Cloud Edition Customer-hosted runtime plane in each datacenter

Correct Answer: B

QUESTION 2
Anypoint Exchange is required to maintain the source code of some of the assets committed to it, such as
Connectors, Templates, and API specifications.
What is the best way to use an organization’s source-code management (SCM) system in this context?

A. Organizations need to point Anypoint Exchange to their SCM system so Anypoint Exchange can pull source code when requested by developers and provide it to Anypoint Studio
B. Organizations need to use Anypoint Exchange as the main SCM system to centralize versioning and avoid code duplication
C. Organizations can continue to use an SCM system of their choice for branching and merging, as long as they follow the branching and merging strategy enforced by Anypoint Exchange
D. Organizations should continue to use an SCM system of their choice, in addition to keeping source code for these asset types in Anypoint Exchange, thereby enabling parallel development, branching, and merging

Correct Answer: B

QUESTION 3
An organization is designing an integration solution to replicate financial transaction data from a legacy system into a data warehouse (DWH).
The DWH must contain a daily snapshot of financial transactions, to be delivered as a CSV file. Daily
transaction volume exceeds tens of millions of records, with significant spikes in volume during popular shopping periods.
What is the most appropriate integration style for an integration solution that meets the organization’s current requirements?

A. API-led connectivity
B. Batch-triggered ETL
C. Event-driven architecture
D. Microservice architecture

Correct Answer: D