Messaging Queue-Initial Draft

Messaging Queue

Messaging queue is an intermediate component between the interacting entities, which are typically consumer and producer. Where the producer produces some data and places them in the queue while the consumer’s task is to retrieve the data from the queue. The separation of these components enables asynchronous communication between the producer and consumer, which do not need to interact simultaneously. Moreover, it decouples the end-points making the system more flexible and providing high scalability and redundancy. Similarly, flexible messaging queue systems allow interconnecting heterogeneous environments making communication easier.

The messaging queue approach can be utilized at several different levels. It can be used for interprocess communication within one operating system as well as to connect various services in distributed systems.

Single-server messaging queue

A single producer-consumer application has one queue, which can be accessed by a single producer or consumer by acquiring the locking mechanism. The queue is considered a critical section where one entity producer or consumer can enter at a time.

This strategy can be extended to multiple producers and consumers with a single queue where the queue can be accessed by one producer or consumer at a time.

The synchronization of both producer and consumer should adhere to the following conditions.

• Produces must wait if the queue is full.
• Consumer must wait if the queue is empty.
• Only one producer or consumer can access the queue one at a time.

Distributed messaging queue

A naive solution is to extend the implementation of the single-server multiple producers-consumers on a distributed system. However, with this solution, the following problems may arise.

1. The locking mechanism will put other entities (producers or consumers) in waiting, which would hit the system’s performance, ...