Why is JMS important?

Created Nov 10, 1999

Jerry Smith

There are several reasons. First, the JMS specification includes two popular messaging strategies: point-to-point and publish/subscribe. Many vendors are supporting this common framework; hence, programmers will be able to implement message-oriented operations in their distributed software that will be portable across many messaging-oriented middleware (MOM) products.

Second, JMS supports both synchronous and asynchronous message passing. In some scenarios, asynchronous messaging is essentially required; in others, it is simply more convenient than synchronous message operations; and, in general, there are scenarios for which highly structured, synchronous communication, such as remote method invocations, is just too rigid.

A third important issue is that JMS supports an event-oriented approach to message reception; event-driven programming is now widely recognized as a productive programming paradigm with which many programmers are now quite familiar.

Fourth, although the JMS specification does not require a security-related API, many JMS implementations provide extensive built-in security. Messages can be transmitted using certificates, as well as encryption. JMS implementations free the developer from many security burdens associated with distributed computing because JMS applications work through the JMS server, which provides security through administered objects. That is, beyond the application, it's possible to establish topic- and queue-based security controls for users, groups, access lists, and so on.