IBM last week put some substance behind its scheme to make pooled computing resources available via the Internet, by detailing plans for products and standards. Under a scheme it calls Grid Computing, IBM will use peer-to-peer (P2P) principles to help firms tap into idle computer resources via the Internet.

Key to the plans is a tight relationship between IBM and the Globus Project, an open source research and development effort which is backed by the US government. Globus is creating building-block technologies for computing grids.

Last week, IBM, Globus and supporting firms, including Microsoft, introduced the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) specifications to mesh Grid Computing concepts with Web services by extending standards such as XML, WSDL and Soap.

IBM is working with Globus to make the core Globus toolkit compliant with Java 2 Enterprise Edition, using IBM WebSphere as the reference application server. Plans for software, storage and servers that support grids were also detailed.

"We've seen the idea of taking 50 or 100 high-powered servers and making them work as a single supercomputer," said Michael R Nelson, IBM's director of Internet technology and strategy. "Now we're paving the way for the use of grid computing in more versatile business environments. Companies don't want to wait two weeks to run a problem on a single mainframe."

All IBM servers will support grid protocols. Technology from IBM's network management subsidiary Tivoli will aid the control of security, privacy, scheduling and workflow; storage networking products will provide capacity and routing.

IBM Research is also using Globus technologies to build BlueGrid, a collection of networked resources distributed worldwide. Some grid efforts, such as the $53m scientific research effort Teragrid, are already underway.

Other vendors, including Sun, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard, are also developing grid computing systems.