Agencies have released updated data center consolidation plans that the White House says could result in over $5 billion in savings, improve information security and reduce energy consumption.
Its federal data center initiative is intended to shut down unneeded datacenters and consolidate others. Last summer the White House said agencies had targeted 373 of the centers – larger ones can be as big as a football field – to be closed by the end of 2012, with 81 closed already.
Agencies now plan to close 962 data centers through 2015, with 472 to be closed by the end of the next calendar year.
The White House said it would also expand the project to include even the smallest data centers – those under 500 square feet, and expand the closure goal to 800 facilities.
"By shutting down and consolidating data centers, we can save taxpayers billions of dollars, curb spending on underutilized infrastructure . . . reduce our cyber security threat posture, increase sustainability within data centers and unlock capital, and enable agencies to reinvest in transformational IT investments, including cloud solutions," wrote federal CIO Steven VanRoekel, in a post on the White House website.
OMB added that it would collaborate with agencies to use a "total cost of ownership model" this fall to tie savings to real budget outcomes in the fiscal 2013 budget and beyond.
