identifying a received message as a member of a message group;

dynamically selecting a single destination consumer application from among multiple possible destination consumer applications within a cluster application to which messages of the message group may be forwarded;

when at least a first message of the message group comprises a group count indicating a total number of members within the message group:

assigning a temporary storage location to the message group on receipt of the first member of the message group;

collecting each member of the message group within the storage location assigned to that message group, wherein only members of the message group are stored within that storage location;

tracking a number of received members stored within the storage location to determine when all members of the message group have been received;

enabling the forwarding of the message group to the destination consumer application only after all members of the message group have been received; and

automatically forwarding each member of the message group to only the single destination consumer application selected, once the single destination consumer application is selected to forward a first member of the message group to;

when the members are assigned a sequence value within their headers corresponding to a preferred order for forwarding the members to the destination consuming application, said collecting comprises mapping each received member of the message group to an in-sequence location of the storage location corresponding to the correct sequence value within the message header, wherein said automatically forwarding transfers said members of the message group in the sequence in which said members are stored within the storage location.