Hybrid MuleSoft Platform: RTF on OpenShift
Architected a 'best-of-both-worlds' hybrid platform balancing CloudHub 2.0 for elastic scale and Runtime Fabric (RTF) on OpenShift for internal datacenter locality and compliance.
Context & Problem
The enterprise faced a dual challenge: the need for public cloud agility for consumer-facing apps, versus strict data residency and low-latency requirements for core mainframe systems.
The Solution
A unified hybrid platform that steers traffic across planes seamlessly, ensuring every workload sits exactly where it belongs—cloud or datacenter—without siloed management.
Platform Topology
Networking & Ingress
A centralized F5 Big-IP layer handles environment-wide ingress. By using L7 SNI-based routing, we ensure that external consumer traffic is steered to CloudHub 2.0 Experience APIs, while sensitive internal orchestration requests are sent directly to the RTF cluster on OpenShift.
F5 terminates public TLS, re-encrypting to mTLS for all cross-plane communication between CH 2.0 and RTF.
Unified api.domain.com namespace with path-based steering to runtime planes.
OpenShift & RTF Ops
RTF on OpenShift provides a containerized runtime within the datacenter. This architecture defers infrastructure management to the OpenShift operator while giving MuleSoft precise control over CPU/Memory isolation for mission-critical core banking services.
- Environment Parity Identical RTF clusters in DEV/TST/STG/PRD to ensure testing validity.
- RPO/RTO Targets Architected for 1-hour RTO using automated F5 DNS cutovers.
Executive Retrospective
"The biggest challenge wasn't the hybrid runtime—it was the initial firewall friction. If I could redo the pilot, I'd insist on a pre-approved 'Platform Wide' CIDR allow-list for CH 2.0 to RTF traffic. We spent weeks debugging individual micro-segmentation rules that could have been handled as a single infrastructure trust zone."
What I Personally Owned
- Hybrid Platform Blueprint
- F5 Ingress Policy Design
- RTF on OpenShift Integration
- mTLS Cross-Plane Security
- Automated DR Runbooks
Technologies
Technical Deep-Dive
Download the 40-page reference architecture PDF.