Microsoft Queuing Frameworks: SQL Service Broker vs. MSMQ

icrosoft offers two queuing frameworks to its 'brand' of developers: MSMQ and SQL Service Broker. These two frameworks offer many of the same features, but differ in some important areas that might affect which you choose for your queuing project. MSMQ is a time-tested technology, while SQL Service Broker is new to most developers. This article outlines some of the differences and may help you to make an informed choice when selecting a queuing technology.

Queuing frameworks are still among the most underutilized frameworks for building enterprise applications. Used properly, they can improve user interface interaction by making long-running resource requests asynchronous, distribute workloads across several servers or services, provide disconnected applications with asynchronous connectivity, enable loose coupling between clients and servers—and the list goes on. The real benefit to developers is that the majority of the heavy lifting to provide these services has already been written by Microsoft. You don't need to author data schemas and stored procedures to manage hand-built queues using SQL Server. There are other queuing services available to Windows developers, such as IBM's MQ Series and BEA's MessageQ, but MSMQ and Service Broker are the two most likely candidates for developers who use Microsoft tools. The cost of MSMQ, the ubiquity of SQL Server availability to Microsoft developers, and the wide range of Windows client platforms supported by both make MSMQ and SQL Service Broker easy choices.