On-demand provisioning of services running on embedded devices

A system comprising:

• one or more computers;
• and
• a computer-readable medium coupled to the one or more computers having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
• storing definitions of types of services in a service type repository, the services embedded on one or more devices included in a network, the network having a dynamic organization that accommodates removal of services from the network and addition of services to the network;
• receiving a query that includes a request for a type of service;
• comparing the requested type of service to the definitions of types of services stored in the service type repository;
• identifying one or more definitions of a type of service stored in the service type repository that match the requested type of service and identifying, for each matching definition of the type of service, a corresponding active service instance embedded on one or more devices included in the network;
• defining a set of active service instances based on respective rating scores;
• determining that a number of active service instances in the set is less than a first threshold, and in response, identifying one or more additional active service instances embedded on one or more devices included in the network that do not currently have a corresponding definition of type of service stored in the service type repository and that matches the requested type of service;
• and
• determining that a respective rating score of each of the additional active service instances is less than a second threshold, and in response, retrieving instructions that, when embedded on and executed by a device, create an active instance of a service having a type of the requested type of service, and installing the instructions on the device included in the network.

A method comprising:

• storing definitions of types of services in a service type repository , the services embedded on one or more devices included in a network, the network having a dynamic organization that accommodates removal of services from the network and addition of services to the network;
• receiving a query that includes a request for a type of service;
• comparing the requested type of service to the definitions of types of services stored in;
• identifying one or more definitions of a type of service stored in the service type repository that match the requested type of service and identifying, for each matching definition of the type of service, a corresponding active service instance embedded on one or more devices included in the network;
• defining a set of active service instances based on respective rating scores;
• determining that a number of active service instances in the set is less than a first threshold, and in response, identifying one or more additional active service instances embedded on one or more devices included in the network that do not currently have a corresponding definition of type of service stored in the service type repository and that matches the requested type of service ;
• and
• determining that a respective rating score of each of the additional active service instances is less than a second threshold, and in response, retrieving instructions that, when embedded on and executed by a device, create an active instance of a service having a type of the requested type of service, and installing the instructions on the device included in the network.