Getting started with MQ on Java: Where to begin?

Question

I'm trying to kludge some legacy connectivity into one of our newer applications, and this marks my first foray into MQ. We have a middleware server that accepts an XML message delivered via MQ; converts this into a proprietary request for our ancient system of record, and then delivers a response on a reply queue in a similar XML format.

I have a sample of the input and output XML structure, and the MQ host, target queue, and reply queue. What I do not have is a clue as to where to begin.

Is there a decent tutorial available for building a simply request/response mechanism with OpenMQ or one of the other free MQ libraries?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I would suggest that you first get comfortable with the Java Message Service (JMS) concepts and API and then concentrate on the particulars of OpenMQ.

To learn about JMS, read the JMS chapter in Oracle's Java EE 6 Tutorial. The Manning book ActiveMQ in Action gives a good introduction to JMS concepts.

If you want to simplify your JMS code, consider using Spring JMS.