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

