Message queue

In computer science, message queues and mailboxes are software-engineering components used for inter-process communication (IPC), or for inter-thread communication within the same process. They use a queue for messaging – the passing of control or of content. Group communication systems provide similar kinds of functionality. In computer science, message queues and mailboxes are software-engineering components used for inter-process communication (IPC), or for inter-thread communication within the same process. They use a queue for messaging – the passing of control or of content. Group communication systems provide similar kinds of functionality. The message queue paradigm is a sibling of the publisher/subscriber pattern, and is typically one part of a larger message-oriented middleware system. Most messaging systems support both the publisher/subscriber and message queue models in their API, e.g. Java Message Service (JMS). Message queues provide an asynchronous communications protocol, meaning that the sender and receiver of the message do not need to interact with the message queue at the same time. Messages placed onto the queue are stored until the recipient retrieves them. Message queues have implicit or explicit limits on the size of data that may be transmitted in a single message and the number of messages that may remain outstanding on the queue. Many implementations of message queues function internally: within an operating system or within an application. Such queues exist for the purposes of that system only. Other implementations allow the passing of messages between different computer systems, potentially connecting multiple applications and multiple operating systems. These message queueing systems typically provide enhanced resilience functionality to ensure that messages do not get 'lost' in the event of a system failure. Examples of commercial implementations of this kind of message queueing software (also known as message-oriented middleware) include IBM MQ (formerly MQ Series) and Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ). There is a Java standard called Java Message Service, which has several proprietary and free software implementations. Implementations exist as proprietary software, provided as a service, open source software, or a hardware-based solution. Proprietary options have the longest history, and include products from the inception of message queuing, such as IBM MQ, and those tied to specific operating systems, such as Microsoft Message Queuing. There are also cloud-based message queuing service options, such as Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), StormMQ, IronMQ, and IBM MQ has a cloud-based managed queuing service. There are a number of open source choices of messaging middleware systems, including Apache ActiveMQ, Apache Kafka, Apache Qpid, Apache RocketMQ, Beanstalkd, Enduro/X, HTTPSQS, JBoss Messaging, JORAM, RabbitMQ, Sun Open Message Queue, and Tarantool.