MECHANISM AND APPARATUS FOR RETURNING RESULTS OF SERVICES IN A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

Systems and methods for returning results of services within a distributed computing environment are provided. After a client invokes one or more functions of a service, results of the function(s) may be returned to the client in a plurality of ways: for example, in a message, in a space (e.g., a network-addressable storage location), in a space wherein the client is notified via an event, using an advertisement returned in a message, using an advertisement returned in a space, and using an advertisement returned in a space wherein the client is notified via an event. The advertisement may include the information necessary to access and read the results in a storage location such as a space. A schema for the service may specify a plurality of messages which are usable to invoke the function(s) of the service. The messages, results, and advertisements may be expressed in a platform-independent and/or programming-language-independent data representation language such as XML. The availability of these plurality of methods may enhance the flexibility and adaptability of the distributed computing environment for a variety of situations, such as for clients having differing capabilities. For additional flexibility, results may also be efficiently passed to another service.