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These days it seems like data centers have become Public Enemy No. 1. From the east coast to the west coast, city, state and the Federal governments are declaring war against the rapidly multiplying and energy guzzling facilities.

A couple of weeks ago California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order calling on that state’s government agencies to reduce energy consumption by 30% by 2012, and to shrink the data center footage by 25% by July of 2010 and by 50% by July of 2011.

Now, the Federal government and New York City have got into the act.

This week Vivek Kundra, the Federal chief information officer, issued a memo to the technology chiefs at state agencies, to undertake a massive data center consolidation initiative. Kundra made note of the fact that the number of Federal data centers has grown from about 432 in 1998 to more than 1,100 in 2009.

In response, he has launched what is being called The Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, which among other things promotes the use of Green IT, shifts investments to more efficient computing platforms, and calls for an increase in IT security.

Kundra has asked agencies to begin by drawing up an inventory of assets. He wants to see a data center consolidation strategy in place by Aug. 30, 2010.

A similar call to action has been issued in the City of New York. The city’s IT Commissioner, Carole Post, outlined plans to modernize and consolidate infrastructure at more than 40 city agencies. The goal is ultimately to consolidate the city’s 50-odd data centers into one shared system. Mayor Bloomberg’s office thinks the initiative could save the city up to $100 million over five years.

The city believes its plans could reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent of planting one million trees and help it achieve its goal of reducing the city’s carbon footprint by 30% in 2017.

With all these governments setting out ambitious plans to consolidate data centers, you might wonder if the hardware vendors supplying these facilities are getting a little nervous. I doubt it.

In fact, my bet is they’re rubbing their hands with glee at all the new, much more efficient, Green, and powerful servers and other technologies they’ll be able to sell. Not only will they be pushing more hardware out the door, data center consolidation is very tricky business - just think of all the fat consulting fees that will be up for grabs.

Comments (1)

	1. 03-13-2010 00:24
	This is one of those issues that can be seen in many different perspectives. The hippie in me thanks these people as the additional savings in terms resources will be good for the planet overall. So from a green perspective it is hard to see a bad side. However, I always wonder why these efficiencies were not considered in the initial design. Given green technologies have come a considerable distance in the last decade but many of these centers were simply designed for speed and not for efficiency.     The flip side of this coin makes me wonder how well a shared more centralized design works in terms of security. Would this not just make it easier for people to interrupt the services in the first place. Just take a look at the brilliance of New York in putting its emergency headquarters in one of the buildings which was already a known target of attack, now that worked out well. It is this type of short sighted design that makes me concerned when I hear bureaucrats talk about subjects like this.    -sean Registered

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