[1][2] It supports programmatic sending of messages via web service applications as a way to communicate over the Internet.

SQS is intended to provide a highly scalable hosted message queue that resolves issues arising from the common producer–consumer problem or connectivity between producer and consumer.

[citation needed] Amazon SQS provides authentication procedures to allow for secure handling of data.

If the user is not using SOAP with WS-Security, a digital signature is calculated using the Secret Access Key.

Messages are stored on multiple servers for redundancy and to ensure availability.

As of 2007[update], Amazon SQS does not guarantee that the recipient will receive the messages in the order they were sent by the sender.

When a message is delivered, a receipt handle is generated for that delivery and sent to the recipient.

SQS requires the recipient to provide the receipt in order to delete a message.

The "clock" for the visibility timeout starts once a message is sent, the default time being 30 seconds.