Amazon SQS Cheat Sheet

 A hosted queue that lets you integrate and decouple distributed

software systems and components.

 SQS supports both standard and FIFO queues.

 SQS uses pull based (polling) not push based

 Users can access Amazon SQS from their VPC using VPC endpoints,
without using public IPs, and without needing to traverse the public
internet. VPC endpoints for Amazon SQS are powered by AWS
PrivateLink.

Benefits

o You control who can send messages to and receive messages

from an SQS queue.

o Supports server-side encryption.

o SQS stores messages on multiple servers for durability.

o SQS uses redundant infrastructure to provide highly-concurrent

access to messages and high availability for producing and
consuming messages.

o SQS can scale to process each buffered request and handle any
load increases or spikes independently.

o SQS locks your messages during processing, so that multiple

producers can send and multiple consumers can receive
messages at the same time.

 Types of Queues

Standard Queue FIFO Queue

Available in all regions Available in the US East (N.Virginia), US

East (Ohio) US West (Oregon), EU
Unlimited Throughput –
(Ireland), Asia Pacific (Tokyo) regions.
Standard queues support a
nearly unlimited number of High Throughput – By default, FIFO
transactions per seconds (TPS) queues support up to 3,000 messages
 per second with batching,

(Can request a limit increase). FIFO

queues support up to 300 messages per
per action. second (300 send, receive, or delete
operations per second) without
At-Least-Once Delivery – A
batching.
message is delivered at least
once, but occasionally more Exactly-Once Processing – A
than one copy of a message is message is delivered once and remains
delivered. available until a consumer processes
and deletes it. Duplicates aren’t
Best-Effort Ordering –
introduced into the queue.
Occasionally, messages might
be delivered in an order First-in-First-Out Delivery – The
different from which they were order in which messages are sent and
sent. received is strictly preserved.

Send data between applications

Send data between applications when
when the throughput is
the order of events is important.
important.

 You can include structured metadata (such as timestamps, geospatial

data, signatures, and identifiers) with messages using message
attributes.

 Message timers let you specify an initial invisibility period for a

message added to a queue. The default (minimum) invisibility period
for a message is 0 seconds. The maximum is 15 minutes.

 SQS doesn’t automatically delete a message after receiving it for you,

in case you don’t successfully receive the message.

 You can subscribe to one or more SQS queues to an Amazon SNS topic
from a list of topics available for the selected queue.

 You can configure an existing SQS queue to trigger an AWS

Lambda function when new messages arrive in a queue.

o Your queue and Lambda function must be in the same AWS

Region.

o FIFO queues also support Lambda function triggers.

o You can associate only one queue with one or more Lambda
functions.
 o You can’t associate an encrypted queue that uses an AWS
managed Customer Master Key for SQS with a Lambda function
in a different AWS account.

 You can delete all the messages in your queue by purging them.

 Long polling helps reduce the cost by eliminating the number of

empty responses and false empty responses. While the regular short
polling returns immediately, even if the message queue being polled
is empty, long polling doesn’t return a response until a message
arrives in the message queue, or the long poll times out.

o Short polling occurs when the WaitTimeSeconds parameter of

a ReceiveMessage request is set to 0.

 To prevent other consumers from processing a message redundantly,

SQS sets a visibility timeout, a period of time SQS prevents other
consumers from receiving and processing the message. The default
visibility timeout for a message is 30 seconds. The minimum is 0
seconds. The maximum is 12 hours.

 SQS supports dead-letter queues, which other queues can target for
messages that can’t be processed successfully.

 Delay queues let you postpone the delivery of new messages to a

queue for a number of seconds.
Basic SQS Architecture

o Main Parts

 The components of your distributed system

 The queue

 The messages

o Standard Queues

 Default queue type.

 Makes a best effort to preserve the order of messages.

 Stores copies of your messages on multiple servers for

redundancy and high availability.

 Consumes messages using short polling (default) – take a

subset of SQS servers (based on a weighted random
distribution) and returns messages from only those
servers.

o FIFO Queues

 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.

 Duplicates aren’t introduced into the queue.

 FIFO queues support message groups that allow multiple

ordered message groups within a single queue.
 o When you create a new queue, you must specify a queue
name unique for your AWS account and region. This becomes
your queue url.
https://sqs.region.amazonaws.com/accountnumber/queuename

o Each message receives a system-assigned message ID for

identifying messages.

o Every time you receive a message from a queue, you receive

a receipt handle for that message.

 You can use cost allocation tags to organize your AWS bill to reflect
your own cost structure.

 Send, receive, or delete messages in batches of up to 10 messages or

256KB.

Dead-Letter Queues

o A dead-letter queue lets you set aside and isolate messages that
can’t be processed correctly to determine why their processing
didn’t succeed.

o Setting up a dead-letter queue allows you to do the following:

 Configure an alarm for any messages delivered to a dead-

letter queue.

 Examine logs for exceptions that might have caused

messages to be delivered to a dead-letter queue.

 Analyze the contents of messages delivered to a dead-

letter queue to diagnose software or the producer’s or
consumer’s hardware issues.

 Determine whether you have given your consumer

sufficient time to process messages.

o When to use a dead-letter queue

 When you have a standard SQS queue, avoid additional

costs from SQS handling failed messages over and over
again. Dead-letter queues can help you troubleshoot
incorrect message transmission operations.
  To decrease the number of messages and to reduce the
possibility of exposing your system to poison-pill messages
(messages that can be received but can’t be processed).

o When not to use a dead-letter queue

 When you want to be able to keep retrying the

transmission of a message indefinitely in your SQS
standard queue.

 When you don’t want to break the exact order of messages

or operations in your SQS FIFO queue.

Best Practices

o Extend the message’s visibility timeout to the maximum time it

takes to process and delete the message. If you don’t know how
long it takes to process a message, as long as your consumer still
works on the message, keep extending the visibility timeout.

o Using the appropriate polling mode.

o Configure a dead-letter queue to capture problematic messages.

o To avoid inconsistent message processing by standard queues,

avoid setting the number of maximum receives to 1 when you
configure a dead-letter queue.

o Don’t create reply queues per message. Instead, create reply

queues on startup, per producer, and use a correlation ID
message attribute to map replies to requests. Don’t let your
producers share reply queues.

o Reduce cost by batching message actions.

o Use message deduplication IDs to monitor duplicate sent

messages.

Amazon SQS Monitoring, Logging, and Automating

o Monitor SQS queues using CloudWatch

o Log SQS API Calls Using AWS CloudTrail

 o Automate notifications from AWS Services to SQS using
CloudWatch Events

Amazon SQS Security

o Use IAM for user authentication.

o SQS has its own resource-based permissions system that uses

policies written in the same language used for IAM policies.

o Protect data using Server-Side Encryption and AWS KMS.

o SSE encrypts messages as soon as Amazon SQS receives them.

The messages are stored in encrypted form and Amazon SQS
decrypts messages only when they are sent to an authorized
consumer.

Amazon SQS Pricing

o You are charged per 1 million SQS requests. The price depends
on the type of queue being used. Requests include:

 API Actions

 FIFO Requests

 A single request of 1 to 10 messages, up to a maximum

total payload of 256 KB

 Each 64 KB chunk of a payload is billed as 1 request

 Interaction with Amazon S3

 Interaction with AWS KMS

o Data transfer out of SQS per TB/month after consuming 1 GB for

that month

Limits

Limit Description

The default (minimum) delay for a queue is 0

Delay queue
seconds. The maximum is 15 minutes.
 For most standard queues , there can be a maximum
of approximately 120,000 inflight messages (received
from a queue by a consumer, but not yet deleted
Inflight messages from the queue). You can request a limit increase.
per queue
For FIFO queues, there can be a maximum of 20,000
inflight messages (received from a queue by a
consumer, but not yet deleted from the queue).

A queue name can have up to 80 characters. The

following characters are accepted: alphanumeric
characters, hyphens, and underscores. Queue names
Queue name are case-sensitive.

The name of a FIFO queue must end with the .fifo

suffix. The suffix counts towards the 80-character
queue name limit.

Message attributes A message can contain up to 10 metadata attributes.

A single message batch request can include a

Message batch
maximum of 10 messages.

Standard queues support a nearly unlimited number

of transactions per second (TPS) per action.

By default, FIFO queues support up to 3,000

Message
messages per second with batching.
throughput
FIFO queues support up to 300 messages per second
(300 send, receive, or delete operations per second)
without batching.

The default visibility timeout for a message is 30

Message visibility
seconds. The minimum is 0 seconds. The maximum is
timeout
12 hours.

Choosing the Right Messaging Service for Your Distributed App:

Amazon SQS-related Cheat Sheets:

 Amazon Simple Workflow (SWF) vs AWS Step Functions vs Amazon SQS

Validate Your Knowledge

Question 1

A company has a web-based ticketing service that utilizes Amazon SQS and a
fleet of EC2 instances. The EC2 instances that consume messages from the
SQS queue are configured to poll the queue as often as possible to keep end-
to-end throughput as high as possible. The Solutions Architect noticed that
polling the queue in tight loops is using unnecessary CPU cycles, resulting in
increased operational costs due to empty responses.

In this scenario, what should the Solutions Architect do to make the system
more cost-effective?

1. Configure Amazon SQS to use long polling by setting the

ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to zero.

2. Configure Amazon SQS to use long polling by setting the

ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to a number greater than zero.

3. Configure Amazon SQS to use short polling by setting the

ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to a number greater than zero.

4. Configure Amazon SQS to use short polling by setting the

ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds to zero.

Show me the answer!

For more AWS practice exam questions with detailed explanations, visit
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Amazon SQS Cheat Sheet References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/
SQSDeveloperGuide
https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/features/
https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/pricing/
https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/faqs/