AWS two SQS queues sending to one worker

Question

I have an application which sends emails and performs file uploads (and image resizing). Both of these services are not used too often and are quite light.

I'm already using a SQS queue to send messages (email to/subject/body) to a worker running a Sinatra app calling the SES API, this is running fine. My question is: is it possible to send file upload messages to that same worker too? This could be on a different queue maybe.

It seems pretty wasteful to have two ec2 instances sitting there, (for the most part), doing nothing.

PS: I'm using elastic beanstalk

Answer 1

It would be better to introduce a attribute TYPE in your message. Message TYPE could be EMAIL/FILEUPLOAD. Based on the attribute TYPE, the worker can call the respective service with the message.

With the above approach, you would be able to process messsages with one worker & one queue. You can auto-scale the server too and there will be no problems with processing messages with multiple workers.

Answer 2

Sure, why not is my initial answer. What is inside the instance is totally up to you and under your complete control. Given that you have already specified the application / server utilization is quite light; you can put your other app into the same.

Just ensure the given Instance Size is fine when both are in the same instance; App Domain ( 2 apps ), application configuration doesn't intermingle among themselves.

PS : You would be using a separate queue for the new app; if in case you need to send images in the queue, you may upload the images in S3 and put their respective links in SQS Message items and process them.