QDis is a simple fanout pub/sub queue built using Redis and Node.JS. Simplicity is it's goal and advantage.

#Test Status

It's able to handle multiple 1000s of messages per second on a MacBook Air when Redis isn't in Append-Only Log mode. In Append-Only Log performance will be dominated by the disk write times, ie the cost of durability.

To publish you use the Redis API, first you start a transaction using MULTI then LPUSH to a list, then PUBLISH on a channel to announce something new is available. Run EXEC to execute the transaction.

Example

MULTI
LPUSH pub one
PUBLISH pub 1
EXEC

First you need to setup your subscription queue using the restful API:

curl -X POST http://localhost:6380/subscribe/pub_queue/sub_queue

This creates a 'queue' called sub_queue. Every message that gets published to pub_queue also gets published in 'sub_queue'.

This means that there's a Redis Pub/Sub channel called 'sub_queue' which can be subscribed to. This publication is a notice which tells you there's something new to be read from from the 'sub_queue' Redis list. You're expected to LPOP from the 'sub_queue' list whenever you're ready to consume another message.

Every once and a while you'll probably want to check there's nothing to be consumed in 'sub_queue' regardless of publication notices. This should never happen if you're subscription socket is working.

To unsubscribe:

curl -X POST http://localhost:6380/unsubscribe/pub_queue/sub_queue

To list subscriptions:

curl -X GET http://localhost:6380/subscriptions

Message durability is handled entirely inside Redis. It's a beautiful piece of software. Configure it for your desired level of durability.

One advantage of this simple approach is that it's very easy to customize and adapt QDis/Redis. Eventually I'll write a bridging daemon which can easily fanout across hosts. It should also be possible to use Redis replication to create emergency failover queues for high-availability.