Applications in enterprises need to communicate, most commonly done by messaging. Apache ActiveMQ is an open-source implementation of the Java Message Service (JMS), which provides messaging in Java applications.
ActiveMQ in Action is a thorough, practical guide to implementing message-oriented systems using ActiveMQ and Java. Co-authored by one of the leading ActiveMQ developers, Bruce Snyder, the book starts with the anatomy of a core Java message, then moves quickly through fundamentals including data persistence, authentication and authorization. Later chapters cover advanced features such as configuration and performance tuning, illustrating each concept with a running real-world stock portfolio application.
Readers will learn to integrate ActiveMQ with Apache Geronimo and JBoss, and tie into both Java and non-Java technologies including AJAX, .NET, C++, Ruby, and the Spring framework.
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.
This is a very well written book about ActiveMQ. I may be using ActiveMQ on an upcoming project, but I wanted to learn about more about enterprise message queues in general. I would recommend this book for that purpose because it is helpful to have concrete examples as opposed to general statements about what some message queues can do. The good thing (or maybe bad, from a complexity standpoint) about ActiveMQ is that it can be configured to work in many different ways. So, after reading this book you should be knowledgeable enough about message queue features to evaluate and use other message queues.
The only thing I would like to see is an updated version. It is approaching 3 years since the original publish date and, as is the nature for technical books, some things have changed. Most of the code samples work, but for some things it is worth searching for more up-to-date examples.
This is a great in-depth book on ActiveMQ which is an open source project for messaging. I was pleasantly surprised at all of the features and configuration options that ActiveMQ has. These allow many different configurations to solve scalability and reliability challenges.