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Pablo Rodriguez

Amazon Mq

Decoupling Hybrid Applications with Amazon MQ

Section titled “Decoupling Hybrid Applications with Amazon MQ”

Amazon MQ is a fully managed message broker service that:

  • Facilitates setup, operation, and management of Apache ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ message brokers in AWS Cloud
  • Provides queue-and topic-based solutions for loosely coupling applications
  • Enables software applications and components to communicate using various programming languages, operating systems, and formal messaging protocols

Message Broker Capabilities: Amazon MQ connects different software systems that often use different programming languages on different platforms, allowing them to communicate and exchange information.

Managed Service Benefits: As fully managed service, Amazon MQ reduces operational responsibilities by managing:

  • Message broker provisioning and setup
  • Ongoing maintenance and operations
  • Infrastructure scaling and reliability

Amazon MQ connects to existing applications with industry-standard messaging APIs and protocols:

  • Java Message Service (JMS)
  • .NET Message Service (NMS)
  • Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP)
  • Streaming Text Oriented Messaging Protocol (STOMP)
  • Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT)
  • WebSocket

Seamless Integration: Most migrations from existing message brokers to Amazon MQ require minimal code changes:

  • Update application endpoints to connect to Amazon MQ
  • Start sending messages immediately
  • Usually no messaging code rewrite needed

Primary Use Case: Hybrid Cloud Environment

Section titled “Primary Use Case: Hybrid Cloud Environment”

Many organizations, particularly enterprises, rely on message brokers to:

  • Connect and coordinate different systems
  • Enable distributed application communication
  • Serve as technological backbone for IT environment and business services

Mixed Environment Support: Organizations building new cloud applications or lifting-and-shifting to AWS often have:

  • Cloud Applications: New applications built for AWS
  • On-Premises Systems: Legacy applications too costly to migrate (e.g., mainframe systems)
  • Integration Requirement: On-premises applications must interact with cloud components

Hybrid Messaging Bridge: Amazon MQ enables message sending between applications in cloud and on-premises to support:

  • Hybrid environments
  • Application modernization
  • Legacy system integration with serverless architectures

Example Architecture:

  • On-premises producer application sends messages to cloud consumer application
  • Single Amazon MQ for ActiveMQ broker created in Availability Zone
  • Broker configured to store messages in EBS volume optimized for low latency and high throughput
  • Producer sends messages to ActiveMQ broker, which propagates to message consumer

Serverless Integration: Invoke Lambda functions from queues and topics managed by Amazon MQ brokers to integrate legacy systems with serverless architectures.

Applicability:

  • Hybrid applications
  • Message broker migration

Messaging Model:

  • Producer-Consumer
  • Publisher-Subscriber

Programming API: Industry standard message broker APIs

Pricing Model:

  • Pay per hour
  • Pay per GB

Use Amazon MQ When:

  • Integrating on-premises applications with cloud applications
  • Moving existing message brokers to the cloud
  • Using messaging in existing applications
  • Need support for open standard APIs and protocols (JMS, AMQP)
  • Want to reduce broker maintenance and licensing costs while improving stability

Amazon MQ Benefits for Migration:

  • Switch from any standards-based message broker
  • Reduce broker maintenance overhead
  • Lower licensing costs
  • Improve broker stability and reliability

Use Amazon SQS/SNS When:

  • Building new applications in the cloud
  • Want queue and topic services using APIs
  • Don’t need to set up message brokers
  • Prefer request-based pricing model

Amazon MQ Costs:

  • Time message broker instance runs
  • Monthly storage usage
  • Data transfer fees

SQS/SNS Costs:

  • Monthly API requests
  • Number of deliveries (SNS)
  • Data transfer fees

Amazon MQ provides the bridge between traditional enterprise messaging and modern cloud architectures, enabling organizations to modernize gradually while maintaining existing messaging investments.

Hybrid Integration