It looks like MSDN Magazine has a column on Design Patterns, but it can't be monthly since it's not in the August issue.  The article for July is on the Architecture of an Autonomous Application.  The authors use the term "fiefdom" to describe the self-contained yet connected nature of a web service.  Emissaries are user interfaces (UIs) to the fiefdom.  The article also discusses connecting the back end to a database through Object-Relational mapping. 

This looks very similar to Roger Sessions white paper on the Software Fortress Model, and may indeed be compatible with it.  I have not looked too in-depth in that regard; comments are welcome for anyone who has.