Denis, thanks for that snip:
"Industry analysts say the telcos are more likely to find success in selling data storage as a utility than the start-up storage service providers (SSP) that once fostered the business model... "
During the late Eighties when the incumbents were readying their SS7/IN infrastructure for use, it was thought that they could leverage their new SSP/SCP. SSP in this case not standing for Storage Service Provider, but rather service switching point, and SCP being the service control points that constitutes the SS7 and advanced databases - which flipped the switch on their light bulbs, in the first place - infrastructure for end user storage purposes, at that time.
T1s and, at the most, T3s, were the only means of accessing those nodes at the time. Nothing of note ever came of it. Today we're talking about Gigabit and soon 10 Gigabit rates for those fortunate enough to sit along a fiber route, and much improved software geared specifically for storage purposes.
It was also thought that Video on Demand [hierarchical storage management, or HSM] servers might also co-locate in those spaces. AT&T did some fancy trialing in this space but both the ironwork and the financial numbers were just too heavy.
Could it be that the incumbents were actually thinking fifteen years ahead of the times back then? If this new form of central office/data center storage takes off, you can look to the startups clamoring for colocation rights.
Production storage is one thing, disaster recovery is something else. I can see the former coming to fruition with not too much breakage. The latter? I don't think the LECs are geared up for D/R types of services from a number of perspectives. I think that they'd wind up outsourcing it, under the hood.
FAC |
