Storage Networking Devices

Storage services are provided through what are known as storage area networks. I do not know
of a wireless broadband service provider that has offered such services, but the services are certainly
possible over a wireless network. As indicated in Chapter 3, storage services often involve
special transmission protocols, such as Fibre Channel and ESCON (although IP and Ethernet storage networking products are achieving increasing acceptance). I know of no wireless
broadband equipment that provides for native support for any storage networking protocol.
In the past, service providers that offered storage services tended to define the offerings in
one of two ways. They would offer a complete outsourced storage service where data backup in
remote data centers would be provided, as well as the download and retrieval of stored data
over a high-speed network, or they would simply provide a transport for an enterprise to transfer
data to a storage site of its own choosing. Companies offering complete storage solutions
have not fared well in the marketplace, and today storage transport appears to be the better
service offering.
Storage transport normally requires a separate storage switch, though some multiservice
platforms can handle storage protocols as well as IP and/or Ethernet. Enterprise-class storage
requires quite a bit of bandwidth and thus would be best attempted over millimeter microwave
or aggregated unlicensed spectrum in the 5GHz region. I suggest that any operator contemplating
offering storage services first poll customers and prospective customers to determine
the likely take rate of such a service before buying equipment to support storage applications.
To date, storage networking has not been a big business from the carrier perspective, though
that could change.