Message Oriented Middleware

In last post I talked about what is middleware, I will focus on message implementation of same today. Message oriented middleware or MOM mostly uses message queues to send and receive data between two systems.

In simple terms, a message is anything that is being sent from one system to another. Mostly MOM uses XML formats, sometimes SOAP based requests or plain texts. An example MOM system will send message to a  message queue or MQ, from where the receiver will pick up the message.

Advantages of Message Oriented Middleware

  1. Persistence: In normal client-server architecture, we will need to make sure both the systems to be available to have a successful communication. Whereas if we are using MQs, one system can still send messages even if the second is down.
  2. Support for Synchronous and Asynchronous communication: by default the communication is asynchronous but we can implement a synchronous system where a request message sender will wait for the response from other party.
  3. Messages can be consumed at will: If one system is busy when messages are received (which do not need immediate response), it can consume the messages when load is less. For example, a lot of systems are designed to consume the messages at non business hours.
  4. Reliability: As messages are persistent, threat of losing information is low even if one or more systems are not available. Additional security mechanism can be implemented in MQ layer.
  5. Decoupling of systems: Both client and server work independently, and often do not have knowledge for other end. System A creates a message and adds to message queue, without concerning who will pick it up as long as it gets the response message (if required). So one system can be written in Java and other can be in Dot Net.
  6. Scalability: As both machines involved in interaction are independent of each other, it is easier to add resources at either end without impacting the whole system.
  7. Group communication: Sender can send message to multiple queues or same queue can have multiple listeners. In addition Publisher- Subscriber approach can help broadcast a message.

Types of Messaging:

Point to Point: This is a simple messaging architecture where a sender will directly send a message to receiver through message queue.

Publisher-Subscriber (Pub-Sub): This type of communication is required when sender wants to send messages to multiple receivers. Topics are defined to which subscriber can subscribe and receive requests based on same. For example, say a core banking system can trigger messages on various events like new account open, a withdrawal is made, interest rate changed etc. For an event, multiple other systems might want that information to take an action, so say for all withdrawal events, systems like fraud detection, mobile messaging system, daily reporting system, account maintenance system subscribe. Whenever, publisher publishes the message to “Withdrawal” topic, all of these systems will receive the message and take appropriate action.