Pattern-based service bus architecture using activity-oriented services

A pattern-based service bus comprising:

• a bus-hosted service that implements a plurality of patterns that define interactions between the bus-hosted service and bus endpoints, wherein patterns include invocation patterns and delivery patterns;
• a first bus endpoint connected to the bus-hosted service that utilizes an invocation pattern to invoke an activity instance on the bus-hosted service;
• and
• a second bus endpoint connected to the bus-hosted service that utilizes a delivery pattern to receive delivery of the activity instance from the bus-hosted service, wherein the first bus endpoint has no knowledge of the second bus end-point.

A distributed communication system comprising:

• a plurality of bus participants;
• a network;
• a plurality of pattern-based service buses connected to the network and to at least one of the bus participants, each pattern-based service bus including:
• a bus endpoint that interacts with one of the plurality of bus participants, wherein the bus endpoint is identified by a unique address, and type of interaction to be provided by the bus endpoint;
• a bus-hosted service that implements patterns that define allowed interactions between the bus endpoint and the bus-hosted service, wherein the implemented patterns are utilized by the bus endpoints to interact with the bus-hosted service and wherein the bus endpoints do not have knowledge of other bus endpoints;
• and
• a bus storage component that interacts with the bus-hosted service to store information relevant to operation of the pattern-based service bus.