US Patent 7114158 Programming framework including queueing network

A queueing network framework for processing messages in stages in a multi-processor environment. An event source generates work packets that have information relating to the messages to be processed. The work packets are queued before processing by a plurality of application services. Each application service follows a queue and defines a processing stage. At each processing stage, the application service operates on a batch of the work packets queued for it by the respective queue.