Java Message Service, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10. Deployment Considerations

An enterprise application’s performance, scalability, and reliability should be among the foremost concerns in a real deployment environment. The underlying messaging middleware is critical to that environment.

Performance, Scalability, and Reliability

Performance and scalability are terms commonly used together, but they are not interchangeable. Performance refers to the speed at which the JMS provider can process a message through the system from the producer to the consumer. Scalability refers to the number of concurrently connected clients that a JMS provider can support. When used together, the terms refer to the effective rate at which a JMS provider can concurrently process a large volume of messages on behalf of a large number of simultaneously connected producers and consumers. The distinction between performance and scalability, as well as the implications of what it means to combine them, is very important. A simple test using one or two clients will differ drastically from a test using hundreds or thousands of clients. The following section is intended to be used as a guide to help with performance and scalability testing.

Determining Message Throughput Requirements

Before you embark on your performance and scalability testing effort, consider what you are trying to accomplish. Since any particular vendor may do well with one scenario and not so well in others, the makeup of your application is important to define. Here are some key ...