Sun Java System Message Queue 4.3 Administration Guide

Message Size

Message size affects performance because more data must be passed from producing client to broker and from broker to consuming client, and because for persistent messages a larger message must be stored.

However, by batching smaller messages into a single message, the routing and processing of individual messages can be minimized, providing an overall performance gain. In this case, information about the state of individual messages is lost.

In our tests, which compared throughput in kilobytes per second for 1k, 10k, and 100k-sized messages to a queue destination and AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE acknowledgment mode, we found that nonpersistent messaging was about 50% faster for 1k messages, about 20% faster for 10k messages, and about 5% faster for 100k messages. The size of the message affected performance significantly for both persistent and nonpersistent messages. 100k messages are about 10 times faster than 10k, and 10k are about 5 times faster than 1k.