Java Message Services overview

Agent queues versus integration queues

Sterling™ Order Management System Software uses the following types of JMS queues extensively:

• Agent Queues: The Sterling Order Management System Software agents use these types of queues as a source of work.
• Integration Queues: The Sterling Order Management System Software integration servers use these types of queues as a means to communicate with external systems.

Agent queues

The Sterling Order Management System Software agents are designed to issue a "getter" to look for work that needs to be processed and to create the appropriate messages into a queue. For example, the Schedule agent on startup checks the Schedule JMS queue. If the queue is empty, it automatically fires a "getter" query against the YFS_TASK_Q table looking for tasks that need to be processed by the Schedule transaction. A JMS message is created for each eligible task. Similarly, the Sterling Order Management System Software order or inventory monitors fire "getters" to look for orders or inventory items in a particular state (for which they are being monitored for). As above, the appropriate messages are put into the JMS queue.

By default, the getter creates up to 5,000 messages even when there are more eligible work. The default is generally sufficient. You can change the limit if you find that the agent is spending more time retrieving work and creating the messages than in processing. This could happen if you have a high number of processing threads or if the retrieval cost is high. You can change the limit by changing the "Number of Records to Buffer" in the agent's Transaction Detail (in Application Platform > Process Modeling) > Agent Criteria Definition > Agent Criteria Details > Criteria Parameter.

Integration queues

In contrast, integration queues are typically used to exchange messages between Sterling Order Management System Software and external systems. For example, Sterling Order Management System Software typically sends shipment messages to warehouse management systems through integration queues.