MSMQ what to do?

Discussion:

MSMQ what to do?

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CRB

2009-05-13 10:52:25 UTC

Hi,

Can you please guide me through the following questions? Much
appriciated..

(1) Is it very late to go to MSMQ programming? Any strong future on
this?
(2) I have started coding on MSMQ some 4 days back, but when I've
really got into it, I've found that what I have done still is just a
top of a mountain. It is just not creating QUEUES and sending
messages. I have done coding on XP. The question here is, is it really
need to configure MSMQ Enterprise (installing servers and stuff)
before I can start even learning this? Is it manadetory that a "tech
lead" position needs to understand and have had deployed entire MSMQ
enterprise on his own? if no who does that?
(3) What is the minimum architecture (setup of servers, sites etc) I
need to setup so that I can claim that I have done enough development
on MSMQ?
(4) Can you please provide me any ebook or some resource on this?
except microsoft please!!
(5) How much time it may take for me to learn enough to claim to be an
MSMQ engineer?
(6) As a programmer I dont have any rights over Active directory and
other resource that may be needed to setup MSMQ enterprise..what
should I do? Have you deployed MSMQ enterprise on your own in first
place?
(7) Can I learn MSMQ using three four computers? What all OS I need?
(8) Knowing all these difficulties (no control over MSMQ required
resources) is it possible for somebody to learn MSMQ using a single
PC??

Please advice..

Thanks

John Breakwell (MSFT)

2009-05-13 12:19:59 UTC

Permalink

Hi CRB,

Q1 MSMQ Future
A1 MSMQ is part of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 so will be
supported until 2020. I've seen nothing to give me the impression that MSMQ
will not be in Windows "next version after 7" but that sort of
decision-making by the product group is off in the future some time.

Q2 MSMQ is not just queues and sending messages.
A2 I disagree - that's pretty much all MSMQ is. You can add extra layers
of functionality if your business requires it (such as routing,
certificates, clustering, and so on) and some specific knowledge would be
useful but you won't need to know about ALL of them. For me it is more
important that I have contacts with people in the company that understand
Active Directory, certification, clustering, networking, etc. MSMQ is a
product that requires coding experience with IT knowledge but don't think
that somebody working on an MSMQ solution needs to know both coding AND IT.
Obviously it would be nice if you did but supermen don't come cheap.

Q3 When can I claim I have done enough development?
A3 I would say that this is when your experience matches the business
requirements of the project you have been given. If you want to be someone
that can put themselves forward for every conceivable MSMQ project then you
need to set up a variety of configurations. Examples would be:

a) Active Directory integration
b) Workgroup mode
c) Use of Dead letter queues, response queues, admin queues, public
queues, private queues, journal queues
d) Web servers (for MSMQ over HTTP)
e) Multicast messaging
f) BizTalk integration
g) Clustering and NLB
h) WCF

Q4 "Can you please provide me any ebook or some resource on this? except
microsoft please!!"
A4 I don't have any recommendations. I only use MSDN and TechNet.

Q5 How long does it take to be an MSMQ engineer?
A5 Wiki says that to become an Expert takes 10 years or 10,000 hours of
practice.

Q6 Programmers don't have control of Active Directory.
A6 This is a "good thing". If you want complete control then just set up
your own environment using VirtualPC and evaluation copies of Windows so you
can't break anything.

Q7 How many machines for learning MSMQ? What OS?
A7 2 computers - sender and receiver. Even applies to testing clustered
MSMQ. Either machine can be a domain controller if you are testing AD
integration. You may want a 3rd if you are interested in testing routing
servers but very few customers use routing. Windows 2008 contains all the
latest functionality.

Q8 Can MSMQ be learnt on 1 machine?
A8 MSMQ performs a lot of cheating when all activity is local so testing
with local queues only is not going to prepare you for a multi-machine
environment. Use Virtual PC so you have more than 1 machine.

Enjoy your time in the world of MSMQ.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

Post by CRB
Hi,
Can you please guide me through the following questions? Much
appriciated..
(1) Is it very late to go to MSMQ programming? Any strong future on
this?
(2) I have started coding on MSMQ some 4 days back, but when I've
really got into it, I've found that what I have done still is just a
top of a mountain. It is just not creating QUEUES and sending
messages. I have done coding on XP. The question here is, is it really
need to configure MSMQ Enterprise (installing servers and stuff)
before I can start even learning this? Is it manadetory that a "tech
lead" position needs to understand and have had deployed entire MSMQ
enterprise on his own? if no who does that?
(3) What is the minimum architecture (setup of servers, sites etc) I
need to setup so that I can claim that I have done enough development
on MSMQ?
(4) Can you please provide me any ebook or some resource on this?
except microsoft please!!
(5) How much time it may take for me to learn enough to claim to be an
MSMQ engineer?
(6) As a programmer I dont have any rights over Active directory and
other resource that may be needed to setup MSMQ enterprise..what
should I do? Have you deployed MSMQ enterprise on your own in first
place?
(7) Can I learn MSMQ using three four computers? What all OS I need?
(8) Knowing all these difficulties (no control over MSMQ required
resources) is it possible for somebody to learn MSMQ using a single
PC??
Please advice..
Thanks

Hans-Jürgen Philippi

2009-07-07 12:21:58 UTC

Permalink

Hi CRB,

maybe a little late, but as John stated before: MSMQ definitely *has* a
future similar to any IT technology - nothing stays forever... ;-)
And yes, like John also said: you can have it (almost) all by just dealing
with queues and messages.

When I started MSMQing about 3 years ago, I was overwhelmed how easy it is
to get direct/workgroup messaging up and running. Just a few hours of
reading*, testing, 2 Win XP computers at home, no Domain, no AD or anything.
And then: unplug a target machine from the network, send something, and yet
receive it after the client has reconnected to the LAN...
Wow, how cool ist that!!! :-)

Today, I still do hardly more than this simple type of direct messaging. It
just fits our needs and turned out to work in literally all networking
environments we've encountered with our MSMQ based product. Surely we've
improved the way how receiver downtimes are handled, how broadcasts may be
used for machine discovery, how triggers may automatically start messaging
clients etc., but basically it's still all about queues and directly
addressed messages.

In my opinion, that just proves how mature and powerful MSMQ is - you don't
have to deal a lot with the infrastructure, you can concentrate on your
application. And that is what you want to do.

Cheers,
Hans

P.S.: *I liked this book very much:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590593464/