Message-oriented middleware

Message-oriented middleware, or MOM, is software or hardware infrastructure that supports sending and receiving messages between distributed systems, distinct from streaming-oriented middleware, which transmits continuous byte sequences rather than discrete messages. It lets application modules running on different, heterogeneous platforms communicate by creating a distributed communications layer that insulates the developer from the details of particular operating systems and network interfaces. Communication happens through asynchronous message passing rather than direct request and response, so a client that sends a message can continue other work while the message provider holds it until a receiving client retrieves it, meaning sender and receiver need not be connected at the same time. The infrastructure typically relies on message queues to store messages when a recipient is unavailable, and can route and transform messages so that an application can send in its own native format while other applications each receive a copy in their own native format. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/