The WebSphere MQ products enable programs to communicate with one another across a network of unlike components - processors, operating systems, subsystems and communication protocols - using a consistent application programming interface.
Applications designed and written using this interface are known as message queuing applications, as they use the messaging and queuing style:
| Messaging | Programs communicate by sending each other data in messages rather than calling each other directly. |
| Queuing | Messages are placed on queues in storage, allowing programs to run independently of each other, at different speeds and times, in different locations, and without having a logical connection between them. |
This chapter introduces messaging and queuing concepts, under these headings: