Whether you want to develop a standalone grid or just want to provide an interface to an existing one, Perl can help. Through its extensible architecture and support for many of the protocols and systems that make up the modern grid, Perl is an ideal candidate either during submission or calculation and computation.Perl remains one of the most popular and prolific of the available general-purpose scripting languages. Its Web focus remains one of its strongest selling points and you can exploit that, along with a number of other functionality enhancements, such as cross-platform support, extensive database services and connectivity options, to help build grid services.In this article I look at the mechanics of Perl as a Web services platform, an important step if you want to integrate Perl into OGSI-based grid applications and services, including looking at some of the supporting communications tools, database utilities, and Web interface components.Read the full article.