You might have heard of RabbitMQ in contexts of RabbitMQ Java or RabbitMQ NodeJs if you’re in the developer community.
But do you really know what it is?
If not then there’s nothing to worry about as you’re not alone as this is a relatively technology. And it’s going to take some time before we get to wrap our heads around it.
And as you’ve found your way to this article of mine. I’m going to tell you all that you need to know about this. Starting from what this is to all the processes and concepts that go along with it.
So, after you’ve gone through this article, you’re going to have a complete working understanding. With that, you’re going to be able to apply this technology for your work.
Or if you’re just curious and think knowledge regarding RabbitMQ is going to help. Then also you’re going to get a lot out of this article.
RabbitMQ: The Fundamentals
First, we need to be clear about what this technology is, and also what it’s not. The former will tell you exactly what this is and the latter is for avoiding any confusion.
As the exact definition of this goes, this is a message-broker software and not a messaging software. Accessibility for this is open-source, and it uses the Advanced Messaging Queuing Protocol.
Recently we’ve gotten to see new extensions in this when it comes to the architecture. And it uses the Streaming Text Oriented Messaging Protocol. This makes things a bit easier in terms of functionality.
If you’re wondering which computer language the developers of this technology have used. Then the answer to that is Erla and they’ve put all of it together on the Open Telecom Platform.
RabbitMQ is available for all the available computer languages, and the most prominent among them is RabbitMQ Java.
So let’s go ahead and delve deep into a more technical discussion on this matter.
How RabbitMQ Works as a Message-broker Platform
To understand what this exactly does, it’s important to consider the following simple analogy. And that’s the analogy of a middleman who acts as a mediator between 2, or sometimes more parties conducting business.
RabbitMQ plays a similar role, but in between different software systems which carry out different tasks.
The main benefit that you can get from this is going to be for reducing delivery and load times of the servers. This can be of real concern to us for one simple reason.
As the amount of data from the servers keeps on increasing in magnitude and scope. Thus the flow for data streams increases, and using a message-broker system can make a real difference here.
General Application of RabbitMQ
Carrying out procedures which usually require lots of system resources is a very difficult thing to say the least. And there’s only so much you can make that work before you start to experience problems.
But using a message-broker application is going to simplify things quite a bit.
By means of message queuing, you’ll be able to distribute one single message to lots of recipients. This is how you’ll be able to balance all necessary workloads.
After taking out a message from the queue, the user will be able to start with processing of the file. It’s not going to be any necessary for either the consumer or the publisher to use the exact same server.
Message Exchanges
For the process of exchange of the messages, you’ll not have them in the queue from the get go.
Here’s where the concept of an ‘exchange’ comes in.
It’s the system that’s there for routing the messages into various queues by using routing and binding keys.
Here are a few different types of such exchanges.
- Fanout exchange – Here you’ve got the broker which routes messages to all the different queues that connect to it.
- Headers exchange – For this type of exchange, the broker uses the message header attributes.
- Topic exchange – Here you’ll have a wildcard match from the routing key to the specific pattern of routing. Now, information regarding the pattern is going to be in the binding.
- Direct exchange – As the name might suggest, this is the exchange where messages go to the queue. And that happens based out of the particular message routing key that’s there with it.
There can be other types of exchanges as well, but these are the main ones for all intents and purposes.
The Initial Operations
To use RabbitMQ, you’ll have to create an instance first, and after you’ve done that. Then you’re good to start sending out messages from here.
What the best thing about this is the scalability. Working with your messages like this is going to allow better handling as well. The secret behind this is the intelligent decoupling of the processes.
And for having a comprehensive control system for this, just open up the management interface of the RabbitMQ server.
Thus, you’ll be able to use RabbitMQ system for working with messages across various platforms.