jmsactivemq-classicmessagebrokermessage-listener

Sending JMS messages between 2 systems


I have 2 systems where System A has to send messages to System B. I am new to JMS so I don't have a big idea on how to implement this. I was thinking of using a message broker (ActiveMQ) to send messages. So, System A will send messages to a queue and the Message Listener in B will consume those messages. There are many users in System B and I want these messages to be shown whenever the user log into the system. So my problem is, if System B keeps consuming messages even when the users are not logged in how can they see the messages which are already consumed? Should I store the consumed messages in a database? I don't understand how this works.


Solution

  • Your problem is one of message persistence and or re-delivery. There are a couple of approaches:

    1. JMS Durable subscription: you could make a durable subscription on a topic from system B and only consume messages while users are logged in. When you don't receive() messages, your messages will be held at the broker for you until you call receive() again. In case A sent messages persistently, all of this is saved by the ActiveMQ broker on disk.
    2. JMS Queue: system A puts messages into a queue and System B doesn't pick up the messages unless users are logged in. The queue will get bigger until you call receive() again from system B. Similar to durable subscriptions, but with a queue you can only have one consumer for each message. With durable subscriptions it's a easier to configure a fault-tolerant version of system B...
    3. Add a 'replay server' for n-times delivery: system A publishes to a topic (could be non-persistent) and a third component (C) would also subscribe to every message and persist to disk. When system B needs to see a message again, it could ask system C for those messages, ideally supporting from_time, or similar.