CODEWITHSUNDEEP
akka.net
Damian
Damian

Reputation: 2789

Akka.Net custom Mailbox, custom IMessageQueue, or something else

We are using Akka.Net and in some cases we need actors to communicate reliably while preserving order over a message queue (i.e. Oracle Advanced Queues or WebSphere MQ, but any message queuing system would work such as RabbitMQ).

We have various requirements why we are using the message queue, so the question isn't if we should be using this with Akka, the question is how.

How would we go about connecting the queue up to Akka so that it is as seamless as possible?

Is a a custom Mailbox the route to go down? Do we need to right a custom IMessageQueue implementation? Or maybe we need a custom router? Are there any specific tests we can run to be sure our Mailbox/IMessageQueue works well with Akka.Net?

EDIT: Should we maybe looking to implement a custom Transport?

Can any pointers be offered on where to start?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 718

Answers (1)

Bartosz Sypytkowski
Bartosz Sypytkowski

Reputation: 7542

In general implementing custom mailbox based on some reliable queue is not feasible solution - actually it has been already done on the Akka JVM side, and it failed all hopes.

One of the basic reasons is usually the misunderstanding of the basic idea - when people are talking about reliable delivery (that MQ-systems offers), what they really mean, is reliable processing. What if your messages has been send with 100% delivery ratio, but ultimately receiving actor/node has crashed while processing them? From the mailbox point of view everything went smooth...

For this reason, usually the way to go is a dedicated actor - or hierarchy of them - working as a gateway to external messaging system. This way you can not only send message them but also mark them as receive after explicit acknowledgement from successfully completed process. One of the examples may be akka-rabbitmq (written in Scala).

Upvotes: 4

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