Messaging forwarding system and method

A messaging system having a cluster of receiving applications for handling received messages, and a cluster of messaging engines for receiving messages from one or more message sources and forwarding the received messages to one of the receiving applications is provided. Each messaging engine is operable to transmit load balancing information, the load balancing information comprising an indication of the current loading on the messaging engine. The receiving applications are instructed to establish a connection to receive messages from a particular messaging engine within the cluster based on the load balancing information. Accordingly, applications are able to receive messages in such a way that the messages do not build up unprocessed on a particular messaging engine for too long, and such that messages are routed to messaging engines where messages are being consumed, and so that the receiving applications receive messages from every messaging engine where messages are arriving.