In-band service chaining in a distributed services environment

A system comprising:

• one or more computer readable storage media storing program instructions and one or more processors which, in response to executing the program instructions, are configured to:
• generate a topic chain for a service request that spans a set of service nodes in a distributed services environment, wherein the topic chain indicates a sequence of topics to publish the service request so as to provide the service request to the set of service nodes by way of the sequence of topics;
• and
• publish the service request and the topic chain in a message to a first topic indicated by the topic chain to provide the service request and the topic chain to a first service node in the set of service nodes, and to allow the first service node to subsequently publish the message to a second topic indicated by the topic chain, so as to provide the service request and topic chain to a second service node in the set of service nodes.

A computer program product comprising:

• one or more computer readable storage media, and program instructions collectively stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions configured to cause one or more processors to:
• generate a topic chain for a service request that spans a set of service nodes in a distributed services environment, wherein the topic chain indicates a sequence of topics to publish the service request so as to provide the service request to the set of service nodes by way of the sequence of topics;
• and
• publish the service request and the topic chain in a message to a first topic indicated by the topic chain to provide the service request and the topic chain to a first service node in the set of service nodes, and to allow the first service node to subsequently publish the message to a second topic indicated by the topic chain, so as to provide the service request and topic chain to a second service node in the set of service nodes.