Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1.1 Deployment Planning Guide

Master Broker and Client Synchronization

In a multi-broker configuration, each destination is replicated on all of the brokers in a cluster. Each broker knows about message consumers that are registered for destinations on all other brokers. Each broker can therefore route messages from its own directly-connected message producers to remote message consumers, and deliver messages from remote producers to its own directly-connected consumers.

In a cluster configuration, the broker to which each message producer is directly connected performs the routing for messages sent to it by that producer. Hence, a persistent message is both stored and routed by the message’s home broker.

Whenever an administrator creates or destroys a destination on a broker, this information is automatically propagated to all other brokers in a cluster. Similarly, whenever a message consumer is registered with its home broker, or whenever a consumer is disconnected from its home broker—either explicitly or because of a client or network failure, or because its home broker goes down—the relevant information about the consumer is propagated throughout the cluster. In a similar fashion, information about durable subscriptions is also propagated to all brokers in a cluster.