SQS Queue Types

5 minutes 5 Questions

There are two types of SQS queues: Standard and FIFO (First-In-First-Out). Standard queues offer at-least-once delivery and guarantee that a message is delivered at least once. They also support multiple producers and consumers. FIFO queues ensure exactly-once processing and maintain the order of the messages. They support message groups, allowing multiple ordered message streams within a single queue. Choosing the right type of queue depends on your application requirements, such as ordering, throughput, and message duplication.

Guide: SQS Queue Types

What is SQS Queue Types?
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queuing service from AWS that allows you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. Two main types of SQS queues exist: Standard Queues and FIFO Queues.

Why is it important?
Understanding SQS Queue Types is fundamental to the efficient design and administration of cloud-based systems on the AWS platform. They provide options for handling messages in different ways to best suit your application’s specific needs.

How does it work?
The Standard Queue offers maximum throughput, best-effort ordering, and at-least-once delivery. It is designed for applications where the throughput is more important than the exact order of message delivery. The FIFO Queue is designed to ensure that the order of send and receive operations is strictly preserved and a message is delivered once and remains available until a consumer processes and deletes it.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on SQS Queue Types
Understand the main differences between Standard Queues and FIFO Queues. When asked to choose between the two, assess the needs of the application and match them to the features of each queue type. Remember that FIFO ensures strict order and allows only one process to do the 'read' operation, while Standard queues offer high throughput and are best when order is less important.

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Question 1

In an online voting system, you need to ensure that users' votes are processed in the order they were received, and no vote is counted more than once. Which SQS queue type should you use?

Delayed Queue Dead Letter Queue FIFO Queue Standard Queue

Correct Answer: FIFO Queue

FIFO Queue is designed for exactly once processing and maintaining the message order, which fits the requirement of processing user votes in the received order and without any duplication. The other answer options are not valid types of AWS SQS queues or are features that can be applied to either Standard or FIFO queues without ensuring message order and uniqueness.

Question 2

A company wants to process messages in the order they arrive and ensure that each message is processed exactly once. Which SQS Queue Type should be used?

Standard Long polling FIFO Short polling

Correct Answer: FIFO

FIFO queues (First-In-First-Out) ensure that messages are processed in the exact order they are sent, and each message is processed exactly once. Standard queues provide at-least-once delivery but may process messages more than once or out of order. Long polling and short polling are techniques used for receiving messages, not queue types. A dead letter queue is used for retaining failed messages, while an SNS Topic is used for publish/subscribe messaging.

Question 3

A company wants to trigger an AWS Lambda function when a message is added to an SQS Queue. Which AWS service should be used to achieve this?

EventBridge CloudFormation CloudTrail IAM

Correct Answer: EventBridge

AWS EventBridge can create an event rule to trigger a Lambda function when a new message is added to an SQS Queue. CloudTrail is for logging API calls, CloudFormation is for infrastructure as code, IAM is for access management, CloudWatch is for monitoring, and API Gateway is for creating APIs.

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