Patent ID: 7249195

Claim:
A method for correlating services within a computer network, the method comprising: providing a message interchange network for exchanging application-level messages between services that are located outside the message interchange network; registering, at the message interchange network, each of the plurality of services so that each service is specified as being accessible by one or more of the plurality of services according to one or more properties and permissions associated with each of the plurality of services; receiving, at the message interchange network, a plurality of application-level messages that each specify one or more of the plurality of services that are to receive the each application-level message and forwarding each received application-level message towards its specified service according to the one or more properties and permissions associated with the specified service; retaining correlation information regarding each application-level message received into message interchange network, wherein the application-level messages are being sent between pairs of the services, wherein the retained correlation information for each application-level message pertains to each application-level message and any other application-level messages related to the each application-level message, the retained correlation information including one or more of: a Hop Identifier (ID) uniquely identifying a hop between a sender and receiver of the each application-level message, call information regarding a call to which the each application-level message and any other related application-level message belongs, or session information regarding a session to which the each application-level message and any other related application-level message belongs, wherein the correlation information is retained in a searchable format that is accessible by the message interchange network; receiving, at the message interchange network, a query from a first service to search the retained correlation information for a specific one or more portions of the retained correlation information; and sending, to the first service, a response to the query that includes the specific one or more portions of the retained correlation information.