Difference Between TIBCO EMS Queues and Topics

In TIBCO EMS based messaging, there are two supported models.

1.   Queue Based Communication

2.   Topic Based Communication

Queue Based Communication:

In case of Queue based JMS communication, point to point messaging mechanism is used. There can be more than one sender to the queue and more than one receiver active, but a message will be delivered to only one of the receiver and hence it is processed only once. Queues are maintained on centralized EMS Server and messages flow from one publisher to one subscriber via EMS Server.

Topic Based Communication:

Topic based EMS Communication is used as publish-subscribe communication model for one-to-many and many-to-many message sending. But here in topics, sender is referred as publisher and receiver is referred as subscriber. A message published to a topic will be delivered to all active topic subscribers.

Should I use queues or topics?

While developing any EMS based application in TIBCO, one key decision to be taken is whether to use topics or queues? Consider following points while taking this decision. If messages published on EMS Server are broadcast nature for which you want multiple subscribers to listen, topics should be preferred. If you want to ensure that messages are delivered one by one to every subscriber with reliability, consider point to point communication model by using queues.