Federal Data Center Consolidation: By The Numbers
Go inside the federal government's data center consolidation initiative, which aims to save $5 billion. See who's closing the most data centers, where, and how else the picture is changing.
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The U.S. government is moving ahead with an ambitious consolidation initiative that aims to slash the number of federal data centers from 2,094 facilities to 1,132 data centers by 2015.
The government, ahead of its original schedule, now plans to close 472 data centers by the end of 2012. Lisa Schlosser, deputy administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's office of e-government and IT, says the consolidation initiative shouldn't be judged by data center closings alone. But the total number of federal data centers, and Uncle Sam's success at reducing them, will be closely watched as a measure of IT efficiency.
The Department of Defense shuttered 52 data centers in fiscal 2011, with the Army alone closing 100,000 square feet of space. Both the Army and Navy instituted moratoriums on new server purchases.
Other agencies with large numbers of data centers include the Department of State, with bureaus, embassies, and other posts around the world, and agencies such as the departments of Energy and Interior that have many distributed offices.
The federal data center consolidation activity is tied to other industry trends, including server virtualization and cloud computing. The White House has implemented a "cloud first" policy that requires agencies to consider cloud computing as an option when evaluating their IT needs. Energy efficiency is another key part of the strategy, and the government hopes to increase efficiency several times over.
However, even as data center consolidation continues to be a key part of the federal government's strategy to save money and increase performance and efficiency in IT, forces are pushing in the other direction.
Appropriators in both the House of Representatives and Senate, for example, have slashed the Department of Homeland Security's fiscal 2012 budget for data center consolidation. With deficit reduction near the top of the political agenda, it may be tough sledding for Congress to spend more money over the short term in order to save it over the long term.
Take a closer look at federal data centers and the consolidation plans:
With its far-flung operations and massive scale, the Department of Defense accounted for nearly a third of the federal government's data centers when agencies tallied them in 2010. The Department of State, with bureaus, embassies, and other posts around the world, was a distant second.
As the federal department with the most data centers, it's not surprising that the Department of Defense is also the one that will be closing the most data centers from 2010 to 2012. The U.S. Department of Agriculture ranks second; more than half of its planned closures are in the Washington DC area.
Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area will account for a majority of data center closings between 2010 and 2012, based on the government's preliminary estimates. That's among agencies that provide such information. The DOD doesn't disclose the locations of its data center facilities.
The Obama administration's data center count includes facilities of at least 500 square feet that house servers and related systems. That's about the size of a typical hotel room. The smallest data center due to close is a 1,000-square-feet USDA facility, though the feds are also looking to reduce the number of server rooms and closets.
The FDCCI definition of a data center even includes 2 to 3 servers "under a desk" or in a field office. However, only data centers of at least 500 square feet are included in the Obama administration's official count of 2,094 federal data centers.
The largest data center scheduled for closing is a 195,000-square-feet facility in Alabama operated by the Department of Homeland Security. The agency is consolidating from 43 facilities (data centers, server rooms, server closets) to two primary centers.
The total space of 472 data centers to be closed in 2011 and 2012 exceeds 800,000 square feet. That's more than 18 acres, or the equivalent of about 14 football fields.
Data center consolidation will result in a reduction in electricity consumption of an estimated 12 billion kWh. That's as much electricity as is generated annually by a small nuclear power plant.
The average server utilization rates in federal data centers range from 7% to 15%. The target range of the FDCCI is 60% to 70%. That will be accomplished not by consolidation alone, but also by server virtualization and other best practices.
The White House estimates that the federal government can save $5 billion from data center consolidation. That would buy enough gasoline to fuel the entire country for two weeks. Or, looked at another way, it's roughly equivalent to the IT budgets of the departments of Education, Energy, Interior, and State combined.
The White House estimates that the federal government can save $5 billion from data center consolidation. That would buy enough gasoline to fuel the entire country for two weeks. Or, looked at another way, it's roughly equivalent to the IT budgets of the departments of Education, Energy, Interior, and State combined.
The U.S. government is moving ahead with an ambitious consolidation initiative that aims to slash the number of federal data centers from 2,094 facilities to 1,132 data centers by 2015.
The government, ahead of its original schedule, now plans to close 472 data centers by the end of 2012. Lisa Schlosser, deputy administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's office of e-government and IT, says the consolidation initiative shouldn't be judged by data center closings alone. But the total number of federal data centers, and Uncle Sam's success at reducing them, will be closely watched as a measure of IT efficiency.
The Department of Defense shuttered 52 data centers in fiscal 2011, with the Army alone closing 100,000 square feet of space. Both the Army and Navy instituted moratoriums on new server purchases.
Other agencies with large numbers of data centers include the Department of State, with bureaus, embassies, and other posts around the world, and agencies such as the departments of Energy and Interior that have many distributed offices.
The federal data center consolidation activity is tied to other industry trends, including server virtualization and cloud computing. The White House has implemented a "cloud first" policy that requires agencies to consider cloud computing as an option when evaluating their IT needs. Energy efficiency is another key part of the strategy, and the government hopes to increase efficiency several times over.
However, even as data center consolidation continues to be a key part of the federal government's strategy to save money and increase performance and efficiency in IT, forces are pushing in the other direction.
Appropriators in both the House of Representatives and Senate, for example, have slashed the Department of Homeland Security's fiscal 2012 budget for data center consolidation. With deficit reduction near the top of the political agenda, it may be tough sledding for Congress to spend more money over the short term in order to save it over the long term.
Take a closer look at federal data centers and the consolidation plans:
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