Patent ID: 7814500

Claim:
A computer-implemented method implemented by one or more processors, the method comprising: buffering, using at least one of the one or more processors, a message in a queue of incoming messages, associating, using at least one of the one or more processors, the message with processing statistics, the processing statistics characterizing: whether a process instance is to process content of the message; a number of process instances handling the message; and a number of process instances that have processed the content of the message; generating, using at least one of the one or more processors, a process instance to process the content of the message if the message is indicated as being a type message for which a process instance is to be generated; and dequeueing, using at least one of the one or more processors, the message based on the processing statistics, the message being dequeued: if the processing statistics indicate that no process instances are handling the message and that no process instance is to process content of the message, or, if the content of the message is to be processed by a threshold number of process instances, and the processing statistics indicate that the threshold number of process instances have processed the content of the message, wherein messages which are to be processed exactly once and have been processed once are dequeued regardless of a position in the queue.