ApsaraMQ for RocketMQ is a distributed messaging service built for asynchronous communication between applications. It runs across multiple data centers within each Alibaba Cloud region, so message publishing and subscribing remain available even if a single data center goes down.
Common use cases include:
Asynchronous decoupling -- Separate upstream services from downstream processing so each component scales independently. For example, an order system publishes order-placement events, and downstream services (payment, inventory, shipping) subscribe and process them on their own schedule.
Reliable event delivery -- Deliver order events, payment notifications, or inventory updates with at-least-once guarantees.
Scheduled task execution -- Trigger downstream actions at a specific time or after a delay of up to 40 days. For example, send a payment reminder 30 minutes after a user places an order.
Distributed transactions -- Coordinate multi-service operations with transactional messages that provide eventual consistency. A local database write and a message send either both succeed or both roll back.
The following diagram shows the overall feature architecture.