title: Message Buses and MOM - the same thing?
body: <p>Every description on the Message Bus architecture seems to describe a centralised intermediary for routing messages:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Each application has a single connection to the message bus instead
    of multiple dedicated connections to each of the other applications.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647328.aspx" rel="noreferrer">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647328.aspx</a></p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Structure the connecting middleware between these applications as a
    Message Bus that enables them to work together using messaging.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.eaipatterns.com/MessageBus.html" rel="noreferrer">http://www.eaipatterns.com/MessageBus.html</a></p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Service Bus is messaging infrastructure that sits between applications
    allowing them to exchange messages in a loosely coupled way for
    improved scale and resiliency.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/messaging/" rel="noreferrer">http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/messaging/</a></p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>The descriptions seem identical to the Message Broker architecture; leading me to believe the following:</p>
  
  <p>The term 'Message Bus' is effectively the same as 'MoM' - a generic term for referring to a messaging infrastructure without explicitly mentioning a topology. I.e. Message Broker <em>is a type of</em> Message Bus.</p>
  
  <p>This seems like a controversial topic, and whilst there's a few similar questions on SO, none have (IMO) definitive answers.</p>
  
  <p><em>P.s. I am aware that Enterprise Service Bus is entirely different, and is effectively a 'feature rich' MoM.</em></p>