What is Message Oriented Middleware?

Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM) is software that supports the sending and receiving of messages between component information systems in an enterprise's distributed system. Message-driven processing is required in a client/server environment that uses a special program called a message broker. A client sends a message to the message broker which is designed to handle many messages from multiple clients and forward them to the appropriate server application. The middleware creates a communications layer that insulates developers from the complexity of different operating systems and network protocols.

MOM is particularly helpful when large changes happen in an organization as multiple systems and products are brought into an organization. It would be costly in time and money to reconfigure or rebuild the IT infrastructure to ensure that all systems new and old are working together. A MOM can bridge this gap and facilitate communication throughout different systems and software without rebuilding an organization’s IT infrastructure. Situations where MOM is helpful are when a business begins to offer a new service, subscribes to a new service, or undergoes an acquisition or merger.

The MOM helps resolve performance issues and other potentially complex issues of interoperability and scalability, which can occur in a constantly changing network of systems. This technology has become of central importance in IoT applications. In this case, centralized message brokers facilitate device-to-device communication.

Message Oriented Middleware Features

Unified messaging
Provisioning and monitoring
Dynamic scaling
Management and control tools
Dynamic scaling
Flexible service quality
Secure communication
Integration with other tools
Asynchronous messaging
Routing
Transformation

Message Oriented Middleware Comparison

When seeking out a message oriented middleware product, consider the following aspects:

Open-source options: There are open-source messaging products, such as RabbitMQ. Open-source products are customizable, but require considerable time for implementation and offer more limited support than a paid option. An open-source solution may not be scalable for larger enterprise solutions.
Queueing: When implementing a MOM, setting up a message queue is essential. Most products will use a first-in-first-out queue but can be customized. Ensure that the product you select is compatible with the queue type that fits your needs.
Complications: Adding another layer to an existing IT infrastructure can lower performance and increase maintenance costs. Ensure the utility of the product exceeds the additional cost of maintaining it.

Pricing Information

There are many open-source options for MOM. Most paid options are enterprise-level solutions and pricing is custom based on your infrastructure and needs.

Deployment Types	Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating Systems	Unspecified
Mobile Application	No

API Requests & Payload Data

$0.01

API Requests

$0.50

Notification Deliveries

$0.50

Apache Kafka

Firebase

Twilio

AWS IoT Core

Azure Service Bus

Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Oracle Integration (OIC)

PagerDuty

Amazon SES

OneSignal