Propagation Features

The following features apply to propagating messages. See "Internet Integration and IDAP" for information on propagation over the Internet.

Automated Coordination of Enqueuing and Dequeuing

Recipients can be local or remote. Because Oracle does not support distributed object types, remote enqueuing or dequeuing using a standard database link does not work. However, you can use AQ message propagation to enqueue to a remote queue. For example, you can connect to database X and enqueue the message in a queue, DROPBOX, located in database X. You can configure AQ so that all messages enqueued in DROPBOX will be automatically propagated to another queue in database Y, regardless of whether database Y is local or remote. AQ will automatically check if the type of the remote queue in database Y is structurally equivalent to the type of the local queue in database X and propagate the message.

Recipients of propagated messages can be applications or queues. If the recipient is a queue, the actual recipients are determined by the subscription list associated with the recipient queue. If the queues are remote, messages are propagated using the specified database link. Only AQ-to-AQ message propagation is supported.

Propagation of Messages with LOBs

Propagation handles payloads with LOB attributes. To see this feature applied in the context of the BooksOnLine scenario, refer to "Propagation of Messages with LOB Attributes".

Propagation Scheduling

Messages can be scheduled to propagate from a queue to local or remote destinations. Administrators can specify the start time, the propagation window, and a function to determine the next propagation window (for periodic schedules).

Enhanced Propagation Scheduling Capabilities

Detailed run-time information about propagation is gathered and stored in the DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES view for each propagation schedule. This information can be used by queue designers and administrators to fix problems or tune performance. For example, available statistics about the total and average number of message/bytes propagated can be used to tune schedules. Similarly, errors reported by the view can be used to diagnose and fix problems. The view also describes additional information such as the session ID of the session handling the propagation, and the process name of the job queue process handling the propagation.

To see this feature applied in the context of the BooksOnLine scenario, refer to "Enhanced Propagation Scheduling Capabilities".

Third-Party Support

AQ allows messages to be enqueued in queues that can then be propagated to different messaging systems by third-party propagators. If the protocol number for a recipient is in the range 128 - 255, the address of the recipient is not interpreted by AQ and so the message is not propagated by the AQ system. Instead, a third-party propagator can then dequeue the message by specifying a reserved consumer name in the dequeue operation. The reserved consumer names are of the form AQ$_P#, where # is the protocol number in the range 128-255. For example, the consumer name AQ$_P128 can be used to dequeue messages for recipients with protocol number 128. The list of recipients for a message with the specific protocol number is returned in the recipient_list message property on dequeue.