Systems and Methods Involving Information Objects

A computer program product including a computer readable medium having computer executable instructions embodied therewith that, as executed on a computer apparatus, implement a method comprising:

• receiving a request from a source service;
• determining whether the target service associated with the request supports a by-reference evaluation strategy;
• determining whether an information object associated with the request is a data reference;
• retrieving data associated with the reference from a database, adding the data to the information object, and invoking the target service and passing the information object to the target service responsive to determining that the target service does not support the by-reference strategy and the information object is a data reference.