An Internet standards body is working to bring various utility computing standards under one roof.

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) said Monday that the Data Center Markup Language (DCML) Organization has joined its ranks. The DCML consists of 45 members headed up by Computer Associates, Opsware, EDS, and TIBCO Software.

The goal of the partnership is to promote on-demand, or utility computing (define), which is favored by many of the major IT businesses, including IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, VERITAS Software and Computer Associates.

But that popularity is part of the problem as the top-tier vendors have all developed their own standards with different approaches and sometimes different architectures.

In contrast, the DCML has been working in concert and even published its DCML 1.0 Framework Specification earlier this summer. At its June meeting, the group said significant progress has been made in the development of the server, network, and applications and services specifications, which are sub-specifications built on the primary Framework Specification and are slated for release this fall.

The DCML said its other differentiator is that it is working in the same vein as other organizations focused on standardizing IT components such as SNIA for storage and CIM for desktops.

Tim Howes, CTO at Opsware, said OASIS and the DCML have worked together before and share a philosophy that users should be involved in standards development.

"We decided it was easier to join up with OASIS than double our efforts with our own set of protocols and working groups," Howes told internetnews.com.

The DCML stands to benefit from OASIS' broad membership base -- more than 3,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members across 100 countries. The transition will result in the formation of the OASIS DCML Member Section, which is open to all OASIS members. The DCML also joins a host of specifications developed at OASIS including the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM), Web Services Security (WSS), and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI).

"I expect that our members will look at this since a fourth of the DCML members are already members with OASIS," Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, told internetnews.com. "This shows the trend that people are recognizing that computing across the Web needs to have a common thread especially as the Web services work continues and the demand for resources increases."

Gannon said the DCML's work will also augment OASIS's partnerships with other organizations such as the Global Grid Forum.

The OASIS DCML Member Section will be managed by a Steering Committee made up of the existing DCML board of directors that includes Louis Blatt of Computer Associates, Darrel Thomas of EDS, and Sharmila Shahani of Opsware. The two consortia said others may be added in the future.