Patent ID: 8370849

Claim:
A method, comprising: detecting a request by an application services platform including at least one application server to access an external service, utilizing an application program interface; determining whether the request complies with at least one rule specific to a user initiating the request, including: identifying statistics associated with the request, wherein the statistics are gathered from tracking previous usage of the external service; gauging an amount of usage of the external service required by the request, based on the statistics gathered from tracking previous usage of the external service; comparing the amount of usage of the external service gauged to be required by the request to a predetermined amount of usage of the external service allowed by one of the rules specific to the user; and determining that the request does not comply with the one of the rules specific to the user when the amount of usage of the external service gauged to be required by the request exceeds the predetermined amount of usage of the external service allowed by one of the rules specific to the user; and determining that the request complies with the one of the rules specific to the user when the amount of usage of the external service gauged to be required by the request does not exceed the predetermined amount of usage of the external service allowed by one of the rules specific to the user; conditionally preparing an invocation message to invoke the external service, the invocation message including information, wherein the invocation is prepared in response to the determination that the request complies with the one of the rules specific to the user and the invocation is not prepared in response to the determination that the request does not comply with the one of the rules specific to the user; and in response to preparation of the invocation message, sending the invocation message to a proxy separate from the at least one application server of the application services platform to cause the message information to be delivered to the external service.