Patent ID: 8510755

Claim:
At a computer system including one or more processors and system memory, the computer system also including a container manager that is configured to listen for and store health events for message activated services, a method for re-starting a service contained in a message activated container, the method comprising: an act of the container manager receiving a registration request from a health reporting agent that reports health events for the service, the registration request requesting to register the service for re-starts; an act of the container manager indicating in durable storage that the service is registered for re-starts in response to receiving the registration request; an act of the container manager acknowledging to the health reporting agent that the container manager has registered the service for re-starts subsequent to indicating in durable storage that the service is registered for re-starts; an act of the container manager receiving a first heartbeat message from the health reporting agent, the first heartbeat message including an indication of a status of the service, the status selected from among idle or busy; an act of the processor detecting that the container manager has missed a pre-configured number of heartbeat messages from the health reporting agent subsequent to receiving the first heartbeat message, and: when the indication of the status of the service in the first heartbeat message comprises an idle status, an act of the container manager determining that the service went away due to inactivity; or when the indication of the status of the service in the first heartbeat message comprises a busy status: an act of the container manager determining that the message activated container is no longer operating as intended in response to detecting that the container manager has missed a pre-configured number of heartbeat messages from the health reporting agent subsequent to receiving the first heartbeat message; and an act of the container manager issuing a re-start message in response to the determination, the restart message causing the service to restart and to check for pending work.