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## Chapter 2. Preface

What is HornetQ?

- HornetQ is an open source project to build a multi-protocol, embeddable, very high performance, clustered, asynchronous messaging system.

- HornetQ is an example of Message Oriented Middleware (MoM) For a description of MoMs and other messaging concepts please see the Chapter 4, Messaging Concepts.

- For answers to more questions about what HornetQ is and what it isn't please visit the FAQs wiki page.

Why use HornetQ? Here are just a few of the reasons:

- 100% open source software. HornetQ is licenced using the Apache Software License v 2.0 to minimise barriers to adoption.

- HornetQ is designed with usability in mind.

- Written in Java. Runs on any platform with a Java 6+ runtime, that's everything from Windows desktops to IBM mainframes.

- Amazing performance. Our ground-breaking high performance journal provides persistent messaging performance at rates normally seen for non-persistent messaging, our non-persistent messaging performance rocks the boat too.

- Full feature set. All the features you'd expect in any serious messaging system, and others you won't find anywhere else.

- Elegant, clean-cut design with minimal third party dependencies. Run HornetQ stand-alone, run it in integrated in your favourite JEE application server, or run it embedded inside your own product. It's up to you.

- Seamless high availability. We provide a HA solution with automatic client failover so you can guarantee zero message loss or duplication in event of server failure.

- Hugely flexible clustering. Create clusters of servers that know how to load balance messages. Link geographically distributed clusters over unreliable connections to form a global network. Configure routing of messages in a highly flexible way.

- For a full list of features, please see the features wiki page .

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