Data center savings hard to track
By
Frank Konkel
While the effort to consolidate data centers is proceeding with some success, significant challenges are impeding progress.
While the effort to consolidate data centers is proceeding with some success, significant challenges are impeding progress. (Stock image)
While agencies are closely tracking data center closings, confusion clearly lingers over expected cost savings and why consolidation is not happening faster under the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative.
“Ultimately, it’s about getting to the point where we’re saving money, and that’s where there hasn’t been a lot of transparency at the moment in data center consolidation,” David Powner, director of IT management issues at the Government Accountability Office, told FCW.
Powner was one of several federal officials, including federal CIO Steven VanRoekel, who testified at a Jan. 22 hearing before the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, responding to lawmakers on the merits of data center consolidation.
In responding to a question from Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), VanRoekel said that while it would be ideal if agencies were moving rapidly to the cloud, capital expenditures are too high for some agencies to do so on a large scale. Instead they save money over time by getting rid of the “low-hanging fruit” and investing those savings for the gradual optimization of systems.
But tracking savings is difficult, Powner said, because most agencies have not reported asset inventories, data on network infrastructure savings or power use information – all things vital to predicting cost savings.
The only agency to come forward publicly with projected savings from data center consolidation is the Defense Department, Powner said, which has closed 114 data centers since 2010.
The agency now projects a $2.2 billion savings due to its data center consolidation, an enormous portion of the $3 billion to $5 billion the Office of Management and budget estimated FDCCI would save governmentwide by 2015.
Powner said if the DOD alone estimates $2.2 billion in savings from closing and consolidating data centers, “you’d think there would be more savings out there” for other agencies, though exactly how much remains unclear.
“There is certainly the potential for expected savings to grow,” Powner said.