ActiveMQ - Network of Brokers Explained - Part 2

In this blog we will see how duplex network connectors work.

In the previous part 1 we created a network connector from broker-1 and broker-2. We were able to see how messages for queue "foo.bar" on broker-1 were forwarded queue "foo.bar" on broker-2 when there was a consumer on broker-2 for queue "foo.bar"

Let's try doing the reverse by producing messages into broker-2's queue foo.bar and consume from broker-1's queue "foo.bar"

Ashwinis-MacBook-Pro:example akuntamukkala$ ant producer -Durl=tcp://localhost:61626 -Dtopic=false -Ddurable=true -Dsubject=foo.bar -Dmax=100

Ashwinis-MacBook-Pro:example akuntamukkala$ ant consumer -Durl=tcp://localhost:61616 -Dtopic=false -Dsubject=foo.bar

In the previous blog post, we had enqueued/dequeued 100 messages. Hence the #messages enqueued now shows as 200 here. 

As shown above, 100 new messages are enqueued on foo.bar queue on broker-2 but there are no consumers though there is a network connector for all queues from broker-1 to broker-2. 

The reason is that a network connector unless specified as "duplex" is unidirectional from the source to the destination broker. 

Let's change the following attribute highlighted in yellow in /Users/akuntamukkala/apache-activemq-5.8.0/bridge-demo/broker-1/conf/activemq.xml configuration file for broker-1.

     <networkConnectors>
         <networkConnector 
            name="T:broker1->broker2" 
            uri="static:(tcp://localhost:61626)" 
            duplex="false" 
            decreaseNetworkConsumerPriority="true" 
            networkTTL="2" 
            dynamicOnly="true">
            <excludedDestinations>
                  <queue physicalName="&gt;" />
            </excludedDestinations>
         </networkConnector>
         <networkConnector 
            name="Q:broker1->broker2" 
            uri="static:(tcp://localhost:61626)" 
            duplex="true" 
            decreaseNetworkConsumerPriority="true" 
            networkTTL="2" 
            dynamicOnly="true">
            <excludedDestinations>
                  <topic physicalName="&gt;" />
            </excludedDestinations>
         </networkConnector>
     </networkConnectors>

Let's restart the brokers and connect to the brokers using jConsole.

Here is broker-1 jConsole MBean tab screenshot which shows the following:

1. Q:broker1->broker2 network connector is duplex.
2. There is now a dynamic producer into broker-1 from broker-2 because the
   Q:broker1->broker2 network connector is "duplex".

Here is broker-2 jConsole MBean tab screenshot which shows the following:

1. Duplex network connector from broker-2 to broker-1
2. Two dynamic message producers from broker-1 to broker-2
1. Please note that "Q:broker1->broker2" network connector shows as duplex as configured in activemq.xml 

Let's see this in action

1. Producer 100 messages into broker-2

Ashwinis-MacBook-Pro:example akuntamukkala$ ant producer -Durl=tcp://localhost:61626 -Dtopic=false -Ddurable=true -Dsubject=foo.bar -Dmax=100

Screenshot of queues in broker-2: http://localhost:9161/admin/queues.jsp

    2.  Create a consumer on foo.bar on broker-1

Ashwinis-MacBook-Pro:example akuntamukkala$ ant consumer -Durl=tcp://localhost:61616 -Dtopic=false -Dsubject=foo.bar

The following screenshot from broker-2 shows that all the 100 messages have been dequeued by a consumer (dynamically forwarded to broker-1).

http://localhost:9161/admin/queues.jsp

The following screenshot shows the details of this dynamic consumer on broker-2's foo.bar queue.

http://localhost:9161/admin/queueConsumers.jsp?JMSDestination=foo.bar

The following screenshot shows that the 100 messages which were dynamically moved from broker-2's foo.bar queue to broker-1's foo.bar queue have been successfully consumed by the consumer which we created in step #2

This concludes part 2 of this series where we saw how duplex network connectors work. 

As always your comments are very welcome. 

Stay tuned for part 3 where we will go over load balancing consumers on local/remote brokers...