External feature provision for cloud applications

Abstract

A computer implemented method to execute a software application in a first network attached computing environment comprising: receiving a definition of the application, the definition identifying a set of software components and including configuration information for installing and executing the components in the first environment; installing and configuring the components in the first environment in accordance with the definition, wherein the definition further includes, for an identified component in the set, software agent information about a software agent that implements part of a software feature, the agent being provided by a second network attached computing environment external to and communicatively connected with the first environment, the second environment providing another part of the software feature, the method further comprising obtaining, installing and configuring the agent based on the agent information to provide part of the software feature for the application.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.