Patent ID: 8832178

Claim:
A method for providing a service portion to a user, the service portion being represented by a component forming part of a component combination, the component combination including a number of components having connections therebetween, each component representing a respective service portion and the component combination representing a sequence of service portions defining a service, wherein the method includes, in a processing system: a) receiving a service request, the service request defining a connection to at least one other component in the component combination; b) generating a component instance corresponding to the component, the component instance including at least one port for communicating with at least one other component; c) implement an agent associated with the at least one port, each agent being adapted to: i) determine from a port specification a plurality of different available data types and formats for that port; and ii) negotiate with another agent of the at least one other component in accordance with the defined connection to thereby determine a common one of the plurality of different available data types and formats d) transferring data with other components in accordance with the defined connection to thereby allow the service portion to be performed; e) the component instance performing the service portion by manipulating data; f) wherein in the event that a common data type and format can not be negotiated, the data is manually manipulated by an operator using the processing system such that the manipulated data can be transferred.