Patent ID: 7774463

Claim:
An article embodied on non-transitory tangible media and operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising: receiving an electronic message generated by a first system in a landscape of computer systems providing message-based services, the message containing a request to initiate a service by a second system, the first system utilizing a first service model and the second system utilizing a second service model, the first service model being different to and incompatible with the second service model; converting the request from a first format according to the first service model to a second format according to a second service model using a contract, the contract being generated using a service oriented architecture model which defines unified interface descriptions among differing service models within a service oriented architecture; and initiating, in the second system, the requested service identified in the message to allow messaging-based interaction between the first system and the second system as specified by the requested service using the respective first and second service models; wherein the contract defines: one or more of components, data types, services, interfaces, models, or operations, relations among entities, each of the entities comprising components within the service oriented architecture, the relations defining a hierarchical classification of the components to enable a corresponding application programming interface to be established, allowed procedures between entities and instantiations of objects corresponding to the entities, and a reference to one or more additional contracts, such reference defining how such contracts are linked to by defining relations among entities in different models.