Point-to-Point

Point-to-Point is an MEP where the publisher of a message is programmed to send the message to specific receivers.

This pattern is mostly used to decouple logical systems when their dependency is not Time Critical. Usually one would use the MDP At Least Once or Exactly Once to make sure that messages from one system to the other don’t get lost. With an ESB one would typically use a Queue for this MEP.

In some scenarios At Most Once is used, for example when a system sends messages that reflect the current state: as soon as a new message appears, the previous one is no longer relevant as it no longer reflects the current state. In these scenarios with ESB one would typically use a Topic, or a Queue where the messages Expire. One should seriously consider to use Publish-Subscribe, though.