Java Message Service

The Java Message Service (JMS) API is a Java Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) API for sending messages between two or more clients. It is an implementation to handle the Producer-consumer problem. JMS is a part of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition, and is defined by a specification developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 914. It is a messaging standard that allows application components based on the Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) to create, send, receive, and read messages. It allows the communication between different components of a distributed application to be loosely coupled, reliable, and asynchronous.

Messaging is a form of loosely coupled distributed communication, where in this context the term 'communication' can be understood as an exchange of messages between software components. Message-oriented technologies attempt to relax tightly coupled communication (such as network sockets, CORBA or RMI) by the introduction of an intermediary component. This approach allows software components to communicate 'indirectly' with each other. Benefits of this include message senders not needing to have precise knowledge of their receivers.

The advantages of messaging include the ability to integrate heterogeneous platforms, reduce system bottlenecks, increase scalability, and respond more quickly to change.

JMS v2.0 is maintained under the Java Community Process as JSR 343.

...
Wikipedia