[Infowarrior] - Feds Commence Huge Data Center Consolidation

[Richard Forno]

Feds Commence Huge Data Center Consolidation
March 1st, 2010 : Rich Miller

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/03/01/feds-commence-huge-data-center-consolidation/

The federal government has begun what looms as the largest data center  
consolidation in history, hoping to dramatically reduce IT operations  
that are currently distributed among more than 1,100 data centers.

On Friday Federal CIO Vivek Kundra outlined details of the ambitious  
plan in a memo that directs federal agencies to prepare an inventory  
of the IT assets by April 30 and develop a preliminary data center  
consolidation plan by June 30. These plans will need to be finalized  
by Dec. 31, 2010, with implementation beginning in 2011.

Huge Implications for Data Center Sector


The government data center consolidation has huge implications for the  
fortunes of system integrators, data center service providers  
(especially in northern Virginia), and cloud computing platforms  
optimized for hosting government apps.

The consolidation effort figures to generate significant business for  
companies providing energy efficiency tools and consulting, as Kundra  
signaled that reducing energy costs will be a driving force in the  
effort. He noted that the number of government data centers soared  
from 432 in 1999 to the current 1,100 plus.

“This growth in redundant infrastructure investments is costly,  
inefficient and unsustainable and has a significant impact on energy  
consumption,” said Kundra. “In 2006 Federal servers and data centers  
consumed 6 billion kwH of electricity, and without a fundamental shift  
in how we deploy technology it could reach 12 billion kwH by 2012.”

First Assessment Due April 30


The immediate challenge: Federal agencies must conduct a “high-level  
assessment” of all their IT assessments and data centers by April 30,  
followed by a more detailed accounting by July 30.

In announcing the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, Kundra  
outlined four high-level goals:

	• Promote the use of Green IT by reducing the overall energy and real  
estate footprint of government data centers;
	• Reduce the cost of data center hardware, software and operations;
	• Increase the overall IT security posture of the government;
	• Shift IT investments to more efficient computing platforms and  
technologies.
That last bullet point is boosting expectations that a meaningful  
chunk of government IT operations will be shifted to a cloud computing  
model. Kundra discussed this prospect at an appearance Friday, saying  
the federal government is looking for “game-changing approaches” to  
deal with the problematic growth in data centers rather than “brute  
force consolidation.”

“This is a huge opportunity to apply best practices from the private  
sector,” Kundra told Federal Computer Week. “It is a huge problem. The  
path we are on does not make sense.”

Likely to Boost Data Center Demand

But the cloud model won’t make sense for all federal applications. If  
recent consolidations by companies like HP and Intel are any  
indication, the drive for greater efficiency will render many of the  
current data center properties obsolete. Many older data facilities do  
not have the power capacity to support a highly-utilized equipment  
space. Consolidation also leads to higher densities, which are more  
difficult to cool in legacy facilities.

That means new data center space, most likely in northern Virginia and  
Maryland. Systems integrators and companies building cloud platforms  
have been among the players driving demand for data center space in  
northern Virginia, where demand has been strong and new supply has  
been limited. As the federal consolidation moves ahead, that demand is  
likely to increase as federal agencies identify new requirements.

The federal consolidation is also likely to be good news for server  
vendors, as consolidations usually include hardware refreshes to take  
advantage of the latest advances in computing power and energy  
efficiency.