Query regarding the java message queue

I have a design query regarding queues. My scenario is as follows:

I have to use a messaging system, with single producer and multiple consumers (asynchronous). The producer pushes different types of messages into the messaging system. Dep开发者_开发技巧ending upon the message type, that particular consumer has to consume that message. (Each consumer is running on a different server). If one consumer is down and a message comes for that consumer, it will be in the messaging system only. If I use a message queue, the message in the queue will block the next messages that can be consumed by the other consumers. Are queues suitable for handling this kind of situation? Or do we need to go for a topic?

Whether you use a queue or a topic should depend on whether there an instance where multiple consumers must process the same message. If that is the case then a topic is required do generate that one-to-many pattern.

On the other hand, if any one message will only ever be consumed by one consumer, then you can use a queue or topic and the consumers specify the message type as a JMS selector. In this way, all consumers can listen on the same queue and each selects a different subset of messages. In the event one application is not there, it's messages do not "block the next messages that can be consumed by the other consumers" but rather they just stack up in the queue and other consumers still receive their messages based on selection criteria.

Please also realize that queues are lightweight constructions and you can easily have one queue per consumer. Typically, things providing a service listen on a well-known queue and each queue represents a different function of the service or a different service. Thus there may be many service input queues. Similarly, reply messages are generally uniquely addressed to the application instance that made the request and go to a unique, often dynamic, reply-to queue. Both of these implementations I have described lead to a separation of traffic across queues rather than pooling different message types into the same queue. Since JMS selectors always impart an additional processing cost, using more queues is generally more performant than selecting many types of message from the same queue.

I am responding to your question about selectors in the comment section here since I have more space and can put links in...

Section 3.8.1 of the JMS 1.1 spec states:

A JMS message selector allows a client to specify, by message header, the messages it’s interested in. Only messages whose headers and properties match the selector are delivered. The semantics of not delivered differ a bit depending on the MessageConsumer being used. See Section 5.8, “QueueReceiver,” and Section 6.11, “TopicSubscriber,” for more details.

Message selectors cannot reference message body values.

A message selector matches a message if the selector evaluates to true when the message’s header field and property values are substituted for their corresponding identifiers in the selector.

As noted above, selectors can be on fields that are implicit in the message such as MsgID or CorrelationID or thsey can be on fields specifically set by the message producer such as a message property. Either way, the client must specify the value of any selectors used by the message consumer.