The evolution of next generation networking middleware (NGNM) yields to the provision of personalized next-generation active services, each one with different traffic characteristics and networking requirements for security, billing, QoS (Quality of Service), mobility, etc. in an efficient and economical usage of network resources. The introduction and well establishment of the active services concept, which will be services capable of dynamically adapting themselves to various underlying networking environment conditions according to the instructions of NGNM and the requirements posed by the end user, constitutes the major goal of this paper. In order to avoid proprietary and custom implementation solutions, an initial and generic active services reference architecture that can be followed by potential active services developers is presented. Finally, an implemented prototype that follows the proposed reference architecture provides a first quick validation of the discussed active service concept.