Messaging Federation using AMQ Interconnect

Introduction

Often organisations have multiple Data Centres across different geographical regions and would like to have them connected and running as if they were forming a single logical cluster.

In the world of messaging and using message brokers alone, this is a challenge difficult to overcome. However AMQ Interconnect (based on Apache's QPid Dispatch Router) introduces a very important building block that opens up new options.

This tutorial showcases how to deploy an AMQ messaging layer that federates two different OpenShift clusters using AMQ Interconnect. This allows different AMQ clients, connected to different data centres, to exchange messages unaware about the regional distance that separates them.

Highlights of the tutorial are:

• Use of Operators to deploy components
• Use of Camel/Fuse to easily implement AMQP Clients
• Use of AMQ brokers to enable asynchronous patterns.
• Secure AMQ Interconnect endpoints.

Dependencies

1. OpenShift environments

   • 1 OpenShift v4.2 cluster as Region-1
   • 1 OpenShift v4.2 cluster as Region-2
   
   

   To run this tutorial/demo you would ideally require to have two different OpenShift clusters available so that you can fully demonstrate how messaging traffic really jumps from one region to another. However, if you need to compromise in resources usage, there is a number of economy approaches you can take.

   Here below you have a set of proposed rates:

   • First class: Run 2 clusters in 2 real different OpenShift instances
   • Business class: Run a single OpenShift cluster, and simulate regions using OpenShift namespaces
   • Economy class: Run OpenShift only in your laptop
   
   

   If you're on Economy, it is mostly recommended to use CodeReady Containers (CRC) to run your OCP environment in your laptop. It provides a working OCP v4.2 environment, with some capabilities off so that your laptop can still breathe. See the CRC documentation references given below for more details.

2. Java environment

   The AMQ clients (producers/consumers) will be implemented using Red Hat Fuse. All you need in your environment to run Fuse is:

   • Java (tested with 1.8)
   • Maven (tested with 3.6.0)

References

• AMQ Interconnect documentation:

  • official:
    https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_amq/7.5/html-single/deploying_amq_interconnect_on_openshift/index#creating-inter-cluster-router-network-router-ocp
  
  

• CodeReady Containers

  • official:
    https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_codeready_containers/1.4/html/getting_started_guide/index
  • installer:
    https://cloud.redhat.com/openshift/install/crc/installer-provisioned
  • blogs:
    https://computingforgeeks.com/setup-local-openshift-cluster-with-codeready-containers/
    https://haralduebele.blog/2019/09/13/red-hat-openshift-4-on-your-laptop/

Chapters:

The tutorial is split in the following chapters:

1. Deploy AMQ Interconnect in Region-1
2. Deploy AMQ Interconnect in Region-2
3. Create Fuse clients (producer/consumer)
4. Attach an AMQ Broker

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Start from: Chapter 1