Patent ID: 7359945

Claim:
In a computer network that includes a computing system capable of originating a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message and dispatching the SOAP message along a routing path towards a destination computing system, the routing path including one or more intermediary message processing computing systems, a method for allowing the originating computing system or any of the one or more message processing intermediary computing systems to configure an amount of resources used to deliver the SOAP message, the method comprising the following: an act of an intermediary message processing computing system accessing the SOAP message that is destined for the destination computing system, the SOAP message having been transmitted by the originating computing system, the SOAP message including modifiable constraint information that designates one or more constraints related to resources or time used to deliver the contents of the SOAP message to the destination computing system along with corresponding values indicative of how close the one or more constraints currently are to being exceeded, the modifiable constraint information being accessible to any message processing computer system in the routing path of the SOAP message such that any message processing computer system in the routing path can modify the modifiable constraint information included in the SOAP message during transmission of the SOAP message, to influence delivery of the SOAP message during transmission of the SOAP message, wherein if a subsequent message processing computing system in the routing path detects, during transmission of the SOAP message, that a constraint has been exceeded, through comparison of the one or more constraints and corresponding indicative values included in the SOAP message, then the subsequent message processing computing system does not deliver the SOAP message to the destination computing system; an act of the intermediary message processing computing system modifying the modifiable constraint information included in the accessed SOAP message during transmission of the SOAP message to influence delivery of the SOAP message; and an act of sending the SOAP message with the modified constraint information to the next message processing computing system in the routing path.