Spring provides a JMS integration framework that simplifies the use of the JMS API in much the same way as Spring’s integration does for the JDBC API.

JMS can be roughly divided into two areas of functionality, namely the production and consumption of messages. The JmsTemplate class is used for message production and synchronous message reception. For asynchronous reception similar to Java EE’s message-driven bean style, Spring provides a number of message-listener containers that you can use to create Message-Driven POJOs (MDPs). Spring also provides a declarative way to create message listeners.

The org.springframework.jms.core package provides the core functionality for using JMS. It contains JMS template classes that simplify the use of the JMS by handling the creation and release of resources, much like the JdbcTemplate does for JDBC. The design principle common to Spring template classes is to provide helper methods to perform common operations and, for more sophisticated usage, delegate the essence of the processing task to user-implemented callback interfaces. The JMS template follows the same design. The classes offer various convenience methods for sending messages, consuming messages synchronously, and exposing the JMS session and message producer to the user.

The org.springframework.jms.support package provides JMSException translation functionality. The translation converts the checked JMSException hierarchy to a mirrored hierarchy of unchecked exceptions. If any provider-specific subclasses of the checked javax.jms.JMSException exist, this exception is wrapped in the unchecked UncategorizedJmsException.

The org.springframework.jms.support.converter package provides a MessageConverter abstraction to convert between Java objects and JMS messages.

The org.springframework.jms.support.destination package provides various strategies for managing JMS destinations, such as providing a service locator for destinations stored in JNDI.

The org.springframework.jms.annotation package provides the necessary infrastructure to support annotation-driven listener endpoints by using @JmsListener.

The org.springframework.jms.config package provides the parser implementation for the jms namespace as well as the java config support to configure listener containers and create listener endpoints.

Finally, the org.springframework.jms.connection package provides an implementation of the ConnectionFactory suitable for use in standalone applications. It also contains an implementation of Spring’s PlatformTransactionManager for JMS (the cunningly named JmsTransactionManager). This allows for seamless integration of JMS as a transactional resource into Spring’s transaction management mechanisms.