US Patent 8146099 Service-oriented pipeline based architecture

Service-oriented systems employing pipeline architecture to accommodate third party extensions for extending existing functionality or providing additional functionality are provided. User or third party provided plug-ins are registered through metadata and executed in a pipeline along with platform operations. The pipeline is extendable on the fly with newly uploaded plug-ins. Dependency analyses for ordering synchronous or asynchronous pipeline operations enable multiple parties to extend the system and operate predictably. Loop detection mechanisms prevent misuse of system resources through accidental or malicious creation of infinite loops with exceptions for non-degenerate infinite loops.