* Why are telcos not investigating grid-networking opportunities?
In the last newsletter, we discussed how networking support for grid computing could be a great new market for telcos – and one that should be of great interest to them as they are squeezed further to find profitable services in a commodity world.
In particular, we shared some comments from our colleague Alan Weissberger’s recent article at Webtorials. Weissberger’s comments match very closely with the thoughts we recently shared concerning how Metro Ethernet access services are redefining the entire set of assumptions by which we design and manage WANs. To wrap up this discussion, we’re sharing some more of Weissberger’s thoughts.
In particular, Weissberger opined, “I wonder when grids move from regional to national to global, how they will be interconnected? When a single organization grid is opened up to collaborators, partner companies, and customers, how will network access be achieved? Where will the enterprise grid networking specifications and best practices recommendations be developed? What type of network topology and connectivity arrangement works best for the majority of industry grids? Will that network technology adequately scale to accommodate more sites, more users, or more servers at any one site? What about disaster recovery? Finally, who will be the primary grid network provider – the user (or community of users), the grid hardware vendor (IBM, HP, Sun), or the network facility vendor (BT)?
“Unless some answers emerge soon, grids are likely to be confined to a single campus network with 1/10G bit/sec Ethernet links used for interconnection. This limits the size of the grid market, because it excludes interconnection of multiple, geographically dispersed grid sites.
“I am astonished that the telcos (with the exception of BT) are not more inquisitive and proactive in the emerging grid networking market and I wonder if they are not missing out on a significant new source of revenue.”
Thanks to Weissberger for bringing this question to light, and we share the same concern. Our guess? Some networking provider(s) will see the proverbial light and provide appropriate services. However, just as it took upstarts like CompuServe and WilTel to get the ball rolling almost 20 years ago for frame relay, the innovative service offerings here will come from a non-traditional source. Only then will the traditional players once again fall into line in order to avoid losing market share.
As a footnote, this is all-too-indicative of the current environment in telecommunications where short-term profits and immediate payback are overwhelming the basic research for new services – such as the research that was historically within the purview of organizations like Bell Labs. We hope that those of you with the real power – the enterprise users – will help us start a revitalization of basic research and user involvement that will support the exploration of truly next generation services.
