Distributed computing services platform

A computer program product for use in a first server of a server federation, the server federation including a plurality of servers that communicate with a plurality of client devices, the computer program product including a computer-readable medium having stored thereon the following:

• computer-executable instructions for detecting the receipt of a network request for a service across a transport-independent messaging infrastructure, the network request structured in accordance with a schema accessible to the plurality of servers and the plurality of client devices, the meaning of the network request being implied by the schema;
• computer-executable instructions for recognizing the meaning of the network request implied by the schema;
• computer-executable instructions for determining that the first server can access some of the information needed in order to respond to the network request without having to contact other servers based on the recognized meaning of the network request;
• computer-executable instructions for determining that further information is needed from at least a second server in order to respond to the network request based on the recognized meaning of the network request;
• computer-executable instructions for structuring a further network request for the further information in response to determining that the further information is needed, the further network request structured in accordance with a second schema;
• computer-executable instructions for causing the further network request to be dispatched to the second server using the transport-independent messaging infrastructure, and which includes a messaging component communicating with a common Application Program Interface that supports a plurality of transports, the Application Program Interface providing common semantics to messaging components at servers in the server federation and to messaging applications at clients in the plurality of clients regardless of the underlying transport associated with a network message;
• computer-executable instructions for detecting the receipt of a network response from the second server across the transport-independent messaging infrastructure, the network response including the further information and the network response being structured in accordance with the second schema;
• and
• computer-executable instructions for using the further information to respond to the network request for the service.