Citigroup Consolidation Shutters 50 Facilities

citi-greenwall

The Citi Data Center in Frankfurt features a "green wall" featuring plants that are irrigated with recycled water. (Photo:Citigroup)

Citigroup has completed a major data center consolidation, which is profiled in Wall Street & Technology. During the course of the project, the huge financial went from 70 data centers to just 20, according to Jagdish Rao, head of enterprise operations and technology at Citigroup. Here's an excerpt:

"We are near to the end of a five year data center consolidation strategy," Rao says. "This is a massive consolidation that follows our global operational model." With many older data center facilities, along with some that were acquired during acquisitions, Rao says the bank determined that it could close a large number of data centers.

The flip side of the equation: Citigroup built 8 brand new data centers around the world, including facilities we've profiled in Austin and Frankfurt. The Wall Street & Technology story is a nice update to our 2009 story on the project, which was then at its midpoint, and Citi's decision to pursue LEED certification on its new facilities.  The Citigroup example is worth noting, as analysts often cite consolidation as a trend that reduces demand for data center space and services. In many cases, large projects result in the consolidated workloads being housed in powerful new servers in newly-built data centers that can support the high densities associated with higher utilizations.