Cloud Computing: Obama Pushes Towards the Cloud. Government Agencies Push Back.

The federal government has begun a review of its data centers with the goal of consolidating the facilities to achieve greater efficiency.  The government is also trying to see if it’s possible to consolidate data center usage among multiple agencies.  In 1998 there were 432 government data centers.  Now, twelve years later that number has grown to 1100 data centers.  The plan is to shave $3 billion off data center costs by September 30, 2012.

The comparison of changes happening in private sector use of data centers to changes with government centers over the past decade as an interesting one.  In the private sector the total footprint of data center usage is shrinking, but in the government sector, just the opposite has been happening, with the government growing the number of data centers, increasing real estate expenditures, and increasing energy consumption.  The Obama administration has put out a mandate that government computing facilities need to model themselves more after the private sector to achieve greater efficiency.  Interestingly, a large number of the government data centers are operated by contractors, not by the government directly.

Many agree that the plan to consolidate government data centers is the right decision — 63 percent of  the 143 government Data Center IT personnel interviewed by MeriTalk think that some sort of consolidation will be inevitable.  And 74 percent think that the target dates in the timeline for change are too aggressive and can’t be met.    12 percent think that consolidation will never happen.

86 percent see the culture of government IT as the biggest challenge that needs to be overcome before any sort of transformative change could happen.  “There’s a strong cultural aspect. People don’t want to give up their equipment. They don’t know who is getting consolidated—or whose jobs will be lost,” said Mark Weber of NetApp, sponsor of the survey.

The MeriTalk survey also asked about the Obama administration’s push towards cloud computing as one path that can help bring about more efficiencies and cost savings.  Only 45 percent thought that the plan was realistic.  Again, most questioned the proposed timelines.  20 percent think that it will take more than five years before the government can move to cloud computing.  43 percent think it will likely take three to five years.  5 percent think that it will never happen.