Federal Consolidation Spreads to Telco Closets

The U.S. government has once again boosted the number of data centers included in its huge data center consolidation, from 2,100 to 2,800. It hasn't stumbled across a hidden trove of missing data centers. New federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said Thursday the government is no longer limiting its data center count to those centers measuring at least 500 square feet.

Not surprisingly, the government has also increased the number of data centers it expects to close 962 total data centers, up from 800. VanRoekel says the consolidation team has developed a data center cost model to give an "apples to apples" comparison of savings initiatives across 24 agencies. VanRoekel told Government Technology that when he began his post, he saw a lot of inconsistency in how agencies were managing their closure planning and managing data center optimization, spurring the model’s development.

See Government Technology, ComputerWorld and the Washington Post for additional coverage.