The US plans to cut spending by closing down 40% of its data centres, saving billions and improving efficiency of its services.
The US plans to cut spending by closing down 40% of its data centres, saving billions and improving efficiency of its services.
The United States Government, in an effort to reduce the country’s spending and improve its technology infrastructure have made decisions to close down 40% of its computer data centres by 2015. This translates to 800 of their vast collection of 2000 data centres across the country over the next four years – in a bid to save billions of dollars.
The United States currently spends in excess of $80 billion on IT to run its services. The plan is to consolidate many of the services, sharing the computing load by performing tasks remotely – this will save money and processing power. Not only will this allow massive savings for the government but it will also benefit the environment too, allowing the US to save some $3 billion a year in energy costs.
The consolidation effort is part of a broader effort to improve federal IT programs launched by outgoing U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra.
In an interview, Vivek Kundra explained that the data centre consolidation plan was part of a broader strategy to embrace more efficient, Internet-era computing. In particular, the government is shifting to cloud computing, in which users manage online applications like e-mail remotely, over the Internet. These cloud services can be provided by the government to many agencies or by outside technology companies.
The Office of Management Budget will shut down 178 data centers in next year, including 60 in the D.C. area. The administration said it has already shut down 81.
