Alias destinations provide a level of abstraction between applications and the underlying target bus destinations that hold messages. Applications interact with the alias destination, so the target bus destination can be changed without changing the application
An alias destination makes a destination available by another name and, optionally, overrides the parameters of the destination.
Each alias destination identifies a target bus destination and target service integration bus.
Applications can use an alias destination to route messages to a target destination in the same bus or to another (foreign) bus (including across a WebSphere MQ link to a queue provided by WebSphere MQ).
An alias destination cannot be used to get messages from a destination in a foreign bus, only to send messages.
Applications are unaware that they have opened an alias destination.
An administrator can define an alias destination that targets another alias destination, but the final destination in such a chain must be a real bus destination.
You can also use alias destinations to manage situations where the difference in the allowable name of a bus destination in WebSphere MQ and the allowable name of a WebSphere MQ queue could cause a problem.
For example, messages might be routed from a local bus to a target destination in a foreign service integration bus, where the two service integration buses are connected indirectly through a WebSphere MQ queue manager. If the bus destination name is longer than the length of name that is allowed by WebSphere MQ, the WebSphere MQ network cannot handle the name correctly. To avoid this problem, you can define an alias destination in the target service integration bus that maps a name that complies with the WebSphere MQ naming restrictions to the bus destination name. Alternatively, you want the application in the local bus to use the actual destination name of the target service integration bus, but again the WebSphere MQ network cannot handle the name correctly. To resolve this situation, you define an alias destination in the local bus that maps the bus destination name to a name that complies with the WebSphere MQ naming restrictions, and then define an alias destination in the target service integration bus that maps the name back to the original bus destination name.