Patent ID: 7013469

Claim:
A computerized method in a distributed computing system comprising: handling, by an application, requests submitted by applications executing on remote devices over a network; and presenting, by an application program interface, functions used by the applications to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system, wherein the application program interface comprises a set of base classes and types that are used in substantially all applications executing on the remote devices submitting requests, wherein the set of base classes and types comprises: an AsyncCallback delegate supplied to an application, wherein the AsyncCallback delegate references a callback method to be called when a corresponding asynchronous operation is completed; and an IAsyncResult interface that enables determination of the status of an asynchronous operation, wherein the IAsyncResult interface includes: an AsyncState property that returns the object that was provided as the last parameter as part of a Begin call corresponding to the asynchronous operation; an AsyncWaitHandle property that returns a WaitHandle that can be used to allow the application to wait for a call to be completed without needing to poll; a CompletedSynchronously property that is set to true if the Begin call corresponding to the asynchronous operation completed synchronously; and an IsCompleted property that is set to true after processing of the asynchronous operation is completed.