Patent ID: 8321590

Claim:
A method of associating applications together to facilitate the exchange of application information, comprising: querying one or more application routers on an application network for meta-data and other information on applications in corresponding application router repositories; exchanging the meta-data and other information on the applications between the application routers; and associating two or more applications together using an application communication path, wherein the two or more applications individually can communicate over the application communication path using their respective proprietary application protocols, wherein the associating comprises: determining processing requirements to process information on the one or more application routers carrying information over the application communication path, wherein the processing requirements include converting information from a proprietary application protocol used by at least one application into a neutral application protocol and converting information from the neutral application protocol back into the respective proprietary application protocol for the at least one application; and provisioning processor cycles from processors located on the one or more application routers to process the information being carried over the application communication path.