System and method for processing messages using pluggable protocol processors in a service-oriented pipeline architecture

An apparatus comprising:

• a data processor;
• a message processor, executable by the data processor, to receive a message having a protocol-specific portion and a protocol-agnostic portion, the message processor to determine a protocol compatible with the received message;
• a plurality of pluggable protocol processors coupled to the message processor, at least one of the plurality of pluggable protocol processors being compatible with the received message, the pluggable protocol processor being compatible with the received message being operable to process the protocol-specific portion of the received message;
• a message processing pipeline to process the protocol-agnostic portion of the received message, the message processing pipeline including a plurality of stages for processing the protocol-agnostic portion of the received message, the message processing pipeline providing processing independent of the pluggable protocol processor;
• and
• a service implementation module for performing a service requested by the received message.

An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having machine executable instructions embedded thereon, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:

• receive a message having a protocol-specific portion and a protocol-agnostic portion;
• determine a protocol compatible with the received message;
• activate one of a plurality of pluggable protocol processors compatible with the received message;
• process the protocol-specific portion of the received message using the activated pluggable protocol processor;
• process the protocol-agnostic portion of the received message using a message processing pipeline, the message processing pipeline including a plurality of stages for processing the protocol-agnostic portion of the received message, the message processing pipeline providing processing independent of the pluggable protocol processor;
• and
• dispatch the received message to a corresponding service implementation module.