US Gov't To Close 137 Data Centers In 2011, More By 2015 49
1sockchuck writes "The US government has closed 39 data centers this year, and expects to shut down 98 more by the end of 2011, federal CIO Vivek Kundra said Wednesday. The 137 closures are a step towards the long-term goal of consolidating 800 of the government's 2,094 data centers by 2015. Government agencies have identified 100 email systems and 950,000 mailboxes to migrate to a cloud computing model as part of Kundra's 'Cloud First' initiative."
Eggs (Score:3)
Put all your eggs in one basket -- what could possibly go wrong?
Re:Eggs (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we don't want the government spending exorbitant amounts of money, but when they start to make changes we criticize them? While I agree the cloud isn't a perfect place to store stuff, migrating all the low-level and unclassified government documents to a single area seems like a frugal move.
Anyways, even if you only read the summary (forget TFA), they're reducing to about 1200 data centers instead of 2k, leaving plenty of places to back-up or spread data.
Hardly 'one basket'. Much more like a Beowulf cluster.
Re:Eggs (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we don't want the government spending exorbitant amounts of money, but when they start to make changes we criticize them?
You must be new here.
If the U.S. Government suddenly announced it was eliminating 10,000 unnecessary bureaucratic jobs, Slashdotters would complain about how much of our tax money it was going to cost to do that.
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So, we don't want the government spending exorbitant amounts of money, but when they start to make changes we criticize them?
You must be new here.
If the U.S. Government suddenly announced it was eliminating 10,000 unnecessary bureaucratic jobs, Slashdotters would complain about how much of our tax money it was going to cost to do that.
Exactly. It would cost thousands to print the paperwork. We would have to train the remaining employees to do the jobs of those let go. Managers would have to spend time trying to determine who we need the least and how best to reorganize without him/her. And people would be reimbursed for accumulated vacation, sick time, sometimes offered early retirement, and possibly even given a severance package.
I would be surprised if this could be done for only $2,000 per person, but, I'm sure there would be a few po
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Put all your eggs in one basket -- what could possibly go wrong?
Did you read the summary? They have over 2000 baskets. That's forty baskets for every state in the union. I'm sure they can make do with 1200 baskets and still have a measure of redundancy.
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I am betting that with 2000 baskets they still are coming up short when it comes to redundancy, availability, cost, scalability and security.
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I am betting that with 2000 baskets they still are coming up short when it comes to redundancy, availability, cost, scalability and security.
With a name like Vivek Kundra, I wouldn't be surprised that the closed data centers reopen in New Delhi.
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Well at the moment there are each their own "one baskets" so putting them into one place may magnify the collective risk, it still does not change the situation. They should consolidate and distribute - i.e. move five data centers into two, and make those two redundant.
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and make those two redundant.
Funny thing. When my job was "made redundant", I got laid off...
Amazing how the same phrase means two different things.
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No offense, but those phrases mean the same thing. It's just that redundancy generally isn't good for employees (exceptions: pilots, doctors/nurses, nuclear plant operators), but is laudable in data storage.
No. If I and a colleague get cross-trained so we can do each other's jobs nobody would call that "redundant skills" even though we've mirrored our skills. If we work in a Java shop then programming COBOL is a redundant skill (though general CS might still be useful). It's a word engineers and computer scientists co-opted, originally it means excessive, superfluous, useless. It can also mean repetitive, but only in that sense. "Look at all those redundant safety nets" doesn't mean they're covering for each o
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10 years ago:
Government to expand number of data centers
"More points of failure -- what could possibly go wrong?"
Slashdot is never satisfied.
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I keep all of my eggs in one refrigerator. Effectively, a rather large, temperature stable basket.
So far, nothing has happened to my eggs. While I'm sure a frozen side of beef might one day fall out of a cargo plane and by astronomical chance, crash through my roof and crush my refrigerator, taking my eggs with it, well, that's a risk I'm happy to take.
They're just eggs, people. Sheesh.
Re:Eggs (Score:5, Funny)
Boss to IT guy:
How is the migration of all our services to the cloud going?
IT guy:
We don't call it that anymore sir, bad connotations from the Amazon episode.
Boss:
Well what do we call it now?
IT guy:
Sir, we now refer to it as "The Basket".
Boss:
Because all of our eggs are in it?
IT guy:
Oh no sir, because it is a large, self supporting structure of many interwoven members.
Boss:
Oh, OK. Please make sure marketing is aware of the new terminology, we would not want to look out of date!
IT guy:
Yes sir, just as soon as I finish with our eggs...
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This is a great idea! I always thought the "cloud" thing was lame anyways, so lets just start calling it "The Basket". Once the IT people start using it, middle management will pick up on it just to sound like they are in the know.
Boss to IT guy:
How is the migration of all our services to the cloud going?
IT guy:
We don't call it that anymore sir, bad connotations from the Amazon episode.
Boss:
Well what do we call it now?
IT guy:
Sir, we now refer to it as "The Basket".
Boss:
Because all of our eggs are in it?
IT guy:
Oh no sir, because it is a large, self supporting structure of many interwoven members.
Boss:
Oh, OK. Please make sure marketing is aware of the new terminology, we would not want to look out of date!
IT guy:
Yes sir, just as soon as I finish with our eggs...
nice! :-)
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"Put all your eggs in one basket -- what could possibly go wrong?"
Well, I remember Bellovin (the "father" of the computer firewall) saying something to the meaning of "the claver will say ' don't put all your eggs in one basket' but the wise will tell you 'put all your eggs in one basket and watch very carefully that basket'".
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Not "leet" (Score:2)
For a moment, I thought they were closing 1337 data centers.
summary of problems (Score:3)
Technocracy: centralisation of government data with easy cross-referencing is harmless.
False premise: clouds increase reliability.
Maxim: one big basket comfortably holds all eggs.
Actual purpose of this exercise: corporate welfare for systems providers.
Definition of a 'data centre' (Score:1)
Google have ones needing a hydro-electric plant to power.
Our it team call the locked cabinet downstairs as another
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200 sq.ft. is a "closet"?!? I wanna live in their house. My *office* isn't 200sq.ft.
(it's 97sq.ft. and the data center room is 577 sq.ft. - less the fire system riser closet.)
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Govliquidation would auction off any surplused equipment online after any other interested agencies screened it.
If you like pallets of old servers with no hard disks, register and monitor the auctions. I find bidders tend to overpay on many items and it's often worse than Ebay. If you are buying something unusual, or something heavy you have the gear to move, you can do well.
Hope they don't outsource to Northrop Grumman... (Score:4, Insightful)
...because the latest in Virginia's IT outsourcing saga is that the State Police are having severe access problems to servers hosted by NG.
Outsourcing to these guys has been a disaster for the Commonwealth. And it happened on Vivek Kundra's watch.
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No worries, I'm sure Northrop Grumman will bid on the contract to fix it.
does vivek know wtf he's doing? (Score:4, Informative)
I think NOT.
http://community.dice.com/t5/Current-Events/US-CIO-Vivek-Kundra-at-best-a-lightweight-at-worst-a-fraud/td-p/216786 [dice.com]
he's also not to be trusted.
http://gawker.com/#!5174642/obamas-thieving-geek-guilty-of-bad-taste [gawker.com]
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for instance, my battalion has three data centers (over three physical installations) and theyre dumping one of them by relocating as many physical servers to virtualized ones (and physically moving ones that cannot be virtualized at this time) in one of the other two. gets rid of a lot of servers and saves a lot of money on electricity/lifecycle/service contracts/backups/etc, but doesnt get rid of an