Use Azure Service Bus with JMS

This article describes how to use Azure Service Bus with the JMS API integrated into the Spring JMS framework.

Core features

Passwordless connection

Passwordless connection uses Microsoft Entra authentication for connecting to Azure services without storing any credentials in the application, its configuration files, or in environment variables. Microsoft Entra authentication is a mechanism for connecting to Azure Service Bus using identities defined in Microsoft Entra ID. With Microsoft Entra authentication, you can manage Service Bus and other Microsoft services in a central location, which simplifies permission management.

How it works

Spring Cloud Azure first builds one of the following types of credentials depending on the application authentication configuration:

• ClientSecretCredential
• ClientCertificateCredential
• UsernamePasswordCredential
• ManagedIdentityCredential

If none of these types of credentials are found, the credential chain via DefaultTokenCredential is used to obtain credentials from application properties, environment variables, managed identity, or IDEs. For more information, see Spring Cloud Azure authentication.

Dependency setup

Add the following dependencies if you want to migrate your Spring JMS application to use Azure Service Bus.

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.azure.spring</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-cloud-azure-starter-servicebus-jms</artifactId>
</dependency>

Configuration

The following table describes the configurable properties when using the Spring JMS support:

For more information, see Spring JMS Document.

Basic usage

Connect to Azure Service Bus JMS using passwordless

Configure the following properties in your application.yml file:

spring:
  jms:
    servicebus:
      namespace: ${AZURE_SERVICEBUS_NAMESPACE}
      pricing-tier: ${PRICING_TIER}
      passwordless-enabled: true

Connect to Azure Service Bus with JMS use Managed Identity

1. To use the managed identity, enable the managed identity for your service and assign the Azure Service Bus Data Owner role. For more information, see Authenticate a managed identity with Microsoft Entra ID to access Azure Service Bus resources.

2. Configure the following properties in your application.yml file:

   spring:
     cloud:
       azure:
         credential:
           managed-identity-enabled: true
     jms:
       servicebus:
         namespace: ${AZURE_SERVICEBUS_NAMESPACE}
         pricing-tier: ${PRICING_TIER}
         passwordless-enabled: true
   

   Important

   If you're using user-assigned managed identity, also need to add the property spring.cloud.azure.credential.client-id with your user-assigned managed identity client ID.

Connect to Azure Service Bus JMS using connection string

Add the following properties and you're good to go.

spring:
  jms:
    servicebus:
      connection-string: ${AZURE_SERVICEBUS_CONNECTION_STRING}
      pricing-tier: ${PRICING_TIER}

Connections

Spring Cloud Azure provides the following three Connection Factory options for connecting to Azure Service Bus JMS:

• JmsPoolConnectionFactory: Set spring.jms.servicebus.pool.enabled=true or leave both pool and cache settings unset to use the default value. This factory maintains a connection pool with customizable options like spring.jms.servicebus.pool.max-connections. Additional pool configuration settings - prefixed with spring.jms.servicebus.pool. - are detailed in the Configuration section. This setup enhances performance by leveraging Azure Service Bus's load-balancing capability, distributing traffic across multiple endpoints.

• CachingConnectionFactory: Set spring.jms.cache.enabled=true and leave spring.jms.servicebus.pool.enabled unset. This factory reuses a single connection for all calls to JmsTemplate, reducing the overhead of connection creation, which is ideal for low-traffic scenarios. However, this mode does not leverage Azure Service Bus's load-balancing capability.

• ServiceBusJmsConnectionFactory: Set spring.jms.servicebus.pool.enabled=false and spring.jms.cache.enabled=false to use ServiceBusJmsConnectionFactory directly, with no pooling or caching. In this mode, each call to JmsTemplate creates a new connection, which can be resource-intensive and less efficient.

For optimal performance and load distribution, we recommend using JmsPoolConnectionFactory by setting spring.jms.servicebus.pool.enabled=true. Avoid wrapping a JmsPoolConnectionFactory with a CachingConnectionFactory or ServiceBusJmsConnectionFactory because this can negate pooling benefits and might result in holding inactive connections after they're evicted from the pool.

Samples

For more information, see the azure-spring-boot-samples repository on GitHub.