WebSphere MQ (also known as IBM MQ) is a messaging middleware that simplifies and accelerates the integration of diverse applications and business data across multiple platforms.

A popular theme in modern applications is to have backend services that only deal with data and let the front-end component take care of the presentation. The two components communicate with each other via the HTTP protocol (the protocol of the Internet). The server side component is said to have a REST API. REST APIs are popular because of their simplicity, but the performance and reliability of the HTTP protocol might not be adequate for certain applications. When the communication between the application components needs to be fast and reliable, we often use a messaging middleware such as WebSphere MQ. They can greatly reduce latency and provide guaranteed delivery.

If your product is built from many components that need to communicate with each other in a reliable manner, but you still want each component to be independent of the others, a messaging system might be a good fit. By using a messaging system, each of your components can be built by an independent software developer team and they do not need to know about each other, which leads to fewer conflicts and greater velocity.

Check out the following projects where we used WebSphere MQ as the messaging system.