Message Queue as an Enabling Technology

The Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) is a specification for a distributed component model in a Java programming environment. One of the requirements of the Java EE platform is that distributed components be able to interact with one another through reliable, asynchronous message exchange. This capacity is furnished by a JMS provider, which can play two roles: it can be used to provide a service and it can support message-driven beans (MDB), a specialized type of Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) component that can consume JMS message.

A Java EE-compliant application server must use a resource adapter furnished by a given JMS provider to use the functionality of that provider. Message Queue provides such a resource adapter. Using the support of a plugged in JMS provider, Java EE components, including MDBs, deployed and running in the application server environment can exchange JMS messages among themselves and with external JMS components. This provides a powerful integration capability for distributed components.

For information on the Message Queue resource adapter, see Chapter 5, Message Queue and Java EE