Report: Feds Say Data Centers in Danger of Becoming Obsolete

Are federal data centers becoming obsolete?

Only 11 percent of 150 federal IT managers surveyed in a new report believe their agency’s data centers currently meet mission demand, and the future outlook is even less rosy. Only 5 percent of those surveyed believe the data centers they operate will have the security, speed and capacity to meet mission needs five years from now in 2021.

Agencies are currently in the process of complying with various policies and laws designed to improve the technological efficiency of some 11,000 government data centers -- in a bid to save billions of dollars. While the Government Accountability Office contends the government should be able to save $8.1 billion through data center closures through 2019, much of the government’s successes stem from efforts within a few wizard agencies.

The Federal Information Technology and Acquisition Reform Act aims to boost efforts originally began by the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, which has been superseded by the Office of Management and Budget’s Data Center Optimization Initiative.

Yet surveyed IT managers aren’t all that optimistic the directives and new laws will help them.

Only 47 percent believe their agency will successfully comply with FITARA by 2021, and only 53 percent believe they’ll actually meet efficiency goals first outlined in 2011.