DOD Sets New Data Center Consolidation Plan Goal

The Defense Department now plans to update the White House on its data center consolidation progress and goals "on/ about" Nov. 28, more than six weeks after the plan's original deadline.

Defense missed an Oct. 7 deadline set by the Office of Management and Budget for agencies to publish a full accounting of their consolidation "approach, rationale and timeline." The department then missed another self-imposed deadline of Nov. 7.

Defense owns about one-third of the government's roughly 2,800 official data centers and will be the most important factor in the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiatives' success or failure.

The government plans to close 1,000 or more centers by 2015, a project officials say will save $3 billion or more.

Some lower level information technology managers have expressed doubts that the government's consolidation goals are achievable.