Patent ID: 7681242

Claim:
A method implemented in a machine-readable medium that executes on a machine and for allocating a resource, comprising: receiving a request to allocate at least a portion of a resource, availability of the portion of the resource was previously published to a trusted third party along with resource characteristics that include a processing speed for the resource, a memory speed for the resource, a memory size for the resource, a storage size for the resource, and a bandwidth capability for the resource, and a decision to make the portion of the resource available was based on a deciding event that is represented as a trust credential that conforms to contractual arrangements for the resource, the portion of the resource is not available unless the trust credential remains valid; dynamically establishing a trust relationship between the resource and a requestor that issues the request via the trusted third party and the trusted third party is remotely located over a network separately from the resource and the requestor, the trust relationship is established by acquiring authentication information and an authentication technique for the requestor to use with the authentication information, the authentication information and the authentication technique acquired from the trusted third party; allocating at least the portion of the resource to the requestor, when the trust relationship was successfully established, and the resource and the requestor securely interact with one another thereafter; providing a consumption specification to the requestor, the consumption specification defining utilization restrictions on usage of the resource by the requestor, the consumption specification hierarchical having global specifications of an enterprise that override local specifications for groups of users for conflicts occurring with the utilization restrictions.