How to Configure a Standard and FIFO SQS Queue in AWS

In this post we will see How to Configure a Standard and FIFO SQS Queue in AWS. Configuring Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) involves setting up either a standard queue or a FIFO (First-In-First-Out) queue, depending on your application's requirements. Here's a step-by-step guide for configuring both types of queues:

Configuring a Standard SQS Queue

Standard queues offer maximum throughput, best-effort ordering, and at-least-once delivery.

1. Sign in to AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SQS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sqs/.

2. Create a New Queue:

   • Click on “Create Queue”.
   • Select “Standard Queue”.
   • Enter the Queue Name.

3. Configure Queue Settings (Optional):

   • Set parameters such as Delay Seconds, Maximum Message Size, Message Retention Period, etc., according to your needs.
   • For a standard queue, ordering is not guaranteed, and each message is delivered at least once.

4. Create Queue:

   • Click the “Create Queue” button at the bottom of the page. Your standard queue is now set up and ready to use.

Configuring a FIFO SQS Queue

FIFO queues ensure the order in which messages are sent and received is strictly preserved and a message is delivered once and remains available until a consumer processes and deletes it.

1. Sign in to AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SQS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/sqs/.

2. Create a New Queue:

   • Click on “Create Queue”.
   • Select “FIFO Queue”.
   • Enter the Queue Name. Note that FIFO queue names must end with the .fifo suffix.

3. Configure Queue Settings:

   • Set parameters such as Message Deduplication ID, Message Group ID, Maximum Message Size, Message Retention Period, etc.
   • FIFO queues also offer features like Content-Based Deduplication.

4. Create Queue:

   • Click the “Create Queue” button at the bottom of the page. Your FIFO queue is now set up and ready to use.

Additional Configuration

• Access Policies: Configure access policies to control which users or services can send messages to or receive messages from the queue.
• Dead-Letter Queues: Optionally, configure a Dead-Letter Queue (DLQ) to collect messages that can't be processed successfully.
• Monitoring: Set up CloudWatch monitoring to track metrics like the number of messages sent, delivered, delayed, etc.

Conclusion

• Use Standard Queues when you require high throughput and at-least-once delivery without the necessity of message ordering.
• Use FIFO Queues when the order of operations and events is critical, or where duplicates cannot be tolerated.

Remember that SQS is a managed service, so much of the heavy lifting is done by AWS, allowing you to focus more on how your application interacts with the queue rather than on the underlying infrastructure and maintenance.