The invention discloses a system for high-throughput handling of transactions in a data-partitioned, distributed, relational database management system. A topic-based messaging architecture (including schema, protocols, naming conventions, etc.) is used in a distributed data-oriented OLTP environment. The topic-based messaging architecture is implemented as a type of publication-subscription ("pub-sub") messaging pattern. In one or more embodiments of the topic-based system, messages are published to "topics" or named logical channels. Subscribers in a topic-based system will receive all messages published to the topics to which they subscribe, and all subscribers to a topic will receive the same messages. The publisher is responsible for defining the classes of messages to which subscribers can subscribe. The topic-based messaging interface improves the scalability of a distributed database management system and provides a robust mechanism for message delivery.