[[spring-cloud-stream-overview-connecting-multiple-application-instances]]
= Connecting Multiple Application Instances

While Spring Cloud Stream makes it easy for individual Spring Boot applications to connect to messaging systems, the typical scenario for Spring Cloud Stream is the creation of multi-application pipelines, where microservice applications send data to each other.
You can achieve this scenario by correlating the input and output destinations of "`adjacent`" applications.

Suppose a design calls for the Time Source application to send data to the Log Sink application. You could use a common destination named `ticktock` for bindings within both applications.

Time Source (that has the binding named `output`) would set the following property:

----
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.output.destination=ticktock
----

Log Sink (that has the binding named `input`) would set the following property:

----
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.input.destination=ticktock
----

