Feds Now Plans To Close 1,200 Data Centers 148
1sockchuck writes "The U.S. government now expects to shutter at least 1,200 data centers by the end of 2015 in its data center consolidation project. That's about 40 percent of the IT facilities identified in the latest update from federal CIO Steven VanRoekel. The number of government data centers has grown steadily — jumping from 1,100 to 2,094 and now to 3,133 — as the Obama administration has identified more facilities than expected, and expanded the initiative to target telecom closets. The CIO's office says it is on track to close 525 facilities by the end of this year, and has published a list of data centers targeted for closure."
Figures (Score:5, Interesting)
Under a Republican administration government grows exponentially and it takes a Democratic president to get things back under control.
Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to topsy-turvy land. We've actually been here for awhile, with "fiscal conservative" presidents and legislatures growing the national debt and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.
I support consolidating telecom facilities. Having facilities physically compromised is a bigger danger when there are more facilities, and having more facilities and presumably more equipment means more places one's information ends up, possibly leading to a greater chance that one's data won't remain secure to electronic penetration either.
Many years ago, Tennessee forced all of its state agencies on to one computer system for the bulk of State business. The agencies were very upset by this, but in the end it did save money and help keep records better because now agency X and agency Y were handling the same record, instead of having separate, different records that were never checked against each other. I'm sure there were problems, especially turf wars where agencies would fight over who "owned" the data and who could change things, but I'd bet it still worked better than having thirty individual agencies all with their own equipment that doesn't synchronize...
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
...and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.
I don't know what the savings are with these DC closures...the article doesn't say. But tell me where in these numbers you see a liberal shrinking the debt http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm [treasurydirect.gov] - probably hosted on a server in one of the soon to be shuttered DCs...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, debt only became an "important" issue to congress once Obama took office even though Bush's policies are responsible for a majority of the debt growth during Obama's term in office. If one wants to see an accurate accounting of who raised the debt and who lowered it they need to take into account the economic co
Re:Figures (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to topsy-turvy land. We've actually been here for awhile, with "fiscal conservative" presidents and legislatures growing the national debt and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.
I support consolidating telecom facilities. Having facilities physically compromised is a bigger danger when there are more facilities, and having more facilities and presumably more equipment means more places one's information ends up, possibly leading to a greater chance that one's data won't remain secure to electronic penetration either.
Many years ago, Tennessee forced all of its state agencies on to one computer system for the bulk of State business. The agencies were very upset by this, but in the end it did save money and help keep records better because now agency X and agency Y were handling the same record, instead of having separate, different records that were never checked against each other. I'm sure there were problems, especially turf wars where agencies would fight over who "owned" the data and who could change things, but I'd bet it still worked better than having thirty individual agencies all with their own equipment that doesn't synchronize...
I've been witnessing the consolidation, or at least attempt at, in California. Sometimes they run out of money for the consolidation effort and it is shelved for short term budget reasons against the wisdom of getting it done now to save much more down the road. Turf wars, well, the try to conceal their turf, 'if we don't look after it it'll be a mess' which needs to be beaten back for the greater good. A little pain now for gain later. Government can't keep growing.
I wouldn't utter a blanket curse at 'Conservatives' growing government - I've lived long enough to see each side of the aisle has its pet projects and is fully capable of spending like "drunken other-side-of-the-aislers" Reagan and GWBush both grew the size of the federal government by significant amounts, without finding a source for the funding, while Clinton (social liberal/fiscal conservative) actully slashed over 100,000 (I think it may have been as high as 300,000 from federal payroll - through consolidation and weeding out things which had lived beyond their mandate.)
Good to see some of this attention coming back. This is how you cut spending, not by some trumpeted bill in the House or turning the budget screws, but by ferreting out the redundancy or unneeded and removing it.
Modern Monetary Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to topsy-turvy land. We've actually been here for awhile, with "fiscal conservative" presidents and legislatures growing the national debt and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.
It's bizarre how perverted the discussion has become due to the focus on deficit and debt. There is a reasonable political debate to be had on the question of whether government should be small or large. Should the government be responsible for maintaining basic infrastructure? For education? And so on.
But these questions should not be confused with discussions about the deficit and debt, at least on the federal level. The deficit is mostly endogenous. That is economist-speak for saying that the deficit is not directly controlled by political decision. Instead, it is largely the result of what happens in the private sector. If the private sector produces a lot of activity, this automatically results in higher tax payments and therefore a lower government deficit. If the private sector is running idle, tax revenue drops while at the same time federal outlays in social programs increase, hence the government deficit increases. Therefore, it is best to just let the deficit be whatever it needs to be. That is the approach of Functional Finance [wikipedia.org], which greatly influenced Modern Monetary Theory [pragcap.com].
Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings. Start worrying about real things instead, like crumbling infrastructure or high unemployment - both are things that can very easily be fixed simultaneously at the federal level, if the deficit terrorists are finally silenced.
Re: (Score:3)
It's bizarre how perverted the discussion has become due to the focus on deficit and debt. ...
Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings.
Dear Sir,
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Sincerely
J. Weidmann
President
Deutsche Bundesbank
Re: (Score:2)
It's bizarre how perverted the discussion has become due to the focus on deficit and debt. ...
Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings.
Dear Sir,
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Sincerely
J. Weidmann
President
Deutsche Bundesbank
I appreciate the sarcasm, but it mostly shows that you have either not read about or not understood the implications of MMT. The situation of the Eurozone countries is more like that of US states, since they are currency users, not issuers. They are not monetary sovereigns. In fact, US states have much less debt relative to GDP than the Eurozone countries, and as non-sovereigns, they have to have low levels of debt. The problem is that within a currency, there must be someone with growing levels of debt to
Re: (Score:3)
Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings.
I'm former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and I approve this message.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and I approve this message.
What's with all the sarcasm attempts these days?
Anyway, just like your sibling comment, you have to understand the difference between a monetarily sovereign government like the US federal government, and a government that is only a currency users, such as the Greek government. And just like your sibling comment, you may find a look at the Eurozone situation [economonitor.com] from an MMT perspective interesting.
Also see my reply [slashdot.org] to the sibling comment.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the US Federal government is also only a currency user, ever since 1913. The US Dept of the Treasury has no legal authority to create new US Dollars and should Congress remove that authority from the Federal Reserve (a pseudo-private/public institution whose owners are US banks but who is somewhat answerable to the US Congress and the President) in the middle of the mess we're seeing, it would bring about an economic panic that would dwarf any we've heretofore witnessed. Greece, Ireland, and other
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the US Federal government is also only a currency user, ever since 1913. The US Dept of the Treasury has no legal authority to create new US Dollars
The so-called independence of the Fed is all smoke and mirrors. The Fed was created by Congress, it has to operate under the rules set by Congress, and it can be undone by Congress. More importantly, even today the Fed does not operate independently from the Treasury. The Fed and Treasury coordinate their transactions to enable the Fed to manage the bonds market. Seriously, read up on it [pragcap.com].
a pseudo-private/public institution whose owners are US banks but who is somewhat answerable to the US Congress and the President
That is quite misleading. Outside of regulatory capture (which is unfortunately a very real thing), the banks have exactl
Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama put the wars into the budget for the 1st time; that made it appear spending went up more than it actually did!
The revenue went down because of the depression that started under Bush and continues today; that means less money coming in while spending continues and in most cases can not and should not instantly reflect revenue. Then you have tax cut extensions which also lowered revenue.
Plus do not forget inflation undermining the dollar's value; a number which is no longer reported because it got so bad (again under Bush, but Obama would have probably done it too.) While this makes the debt amount seem lower in value it actually does more harm than good.
The economy stimulus was way too weak and way too foolish (republican tax cuts) and that cost us a huge amount only to soften the downward spiral and couldn't dig us out-- you have to take a big step backwards so then you can build up enough momentum to escape...
Re:Figures (Score:4, Informative)
inflation undermining the dollar's value
You should note that inflation has been historically low over the past 4 years.
Also, the USD has gained value relative to other widely circulated currencies since the Global economy turned downward in 2007.
Re: (Score:2)
Ha! They stopped reporting it after Greenspan left; you can't prove your statement because it became a secret; you can only estimate.
As far as relative value, that is a trick because the rest were also playing money games; relatively, a car going 50mph can speed past the pack and win the race because they are going 30mph... it doesn't matter if the film is sped up or slowed down (btw, this is one way they do racing for movies; actually kung fu also does it because the real thing goes too fast for the audien
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. Your ignorance here is blowing me away. I don't mean that as flamebait or trolling. I'm honestly shocked that you wrote what you did.
Seriously, go try to find proof that 'they' (I'm assuming that you mean the Federal Reserve since you mentioned Greenspan or the Federal government in general) stopped. You will find that the Federal Reserve never reported inflation directly but use data from the BEA and BLS in their research and reports. Neither the BEA nor the BLS has stopped reporting CPE or CPI, respe
Re:Figures (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm no Obama supporter.
He has expanded on the bad that Bush got started.
He's OK with ignoring due process for Citizens of the USA (which I think should be extended to all people that the USA's government agencies accuse of a crime).
He lent money to insolvent corporations without a penalty rate or equity participation but would not consider lending or granting funds to insolvent or solvent but illiquid individuals during a credit freeze.
His staff was informing corporate board members of the about to be announced free money that was going to be handed to them.
He gave up until recently on filling the vacant Fed Board position after a little push back initially (when the Fed could have saved many people from extended unemployment)
He hasn't pushed for effective regulations on financial leverage and size of financial intermediaries.
He hasn't pushed for easier formation of Mutual financial intermediaries.
He ignored the unemployment epidemic after the initial stimulus bill.
He never publicly entertained a single payer health care system.
But he still seems better suited to run the country than his predecessor or hopeful successors now in Iowa.
Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
So if there something wrong under a Democrat administration, it's the President's fault, but if there's something under a Republican administration, it's Congress's fault.
OK, I get it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This.
It appears to me that Republicans engage in hypocrisy more than Democrats. I remember a common refrain "Why do you hate Bush so much?" whenever there was legitimate criticism of his policies. Those same people are now calling Obama a Nazi, a Communist (I am sure Hitler and Stalin would have a chuckle on that one), non-American, etc. etc.
Why do you hate Obama so much?
Re: (Score:2)
No. When there is a Republican president, then it was the last Democrat president's fault, even 8 years later. When there is a Democrat president, its his fault.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah. The right's been on a blame-Carter kick since around the end of Bush the Lesser's presidency.
Re: (Score:2)
The President's only real power in government is vetoing laws, making executive orders, and having command of the military.
Obama (and Bush, and all of the predecessors) had loads of options if Congress wouldn't cooperate.
1) Veto everything you don't like. Most laws nowadays don't pass with a mega majority, and it's much harder to override a veto than get a law passed and handed off to the President for signing.
2) Make executive orders about this or that. Obama loves this one, but some of the stuff he does i
Re: (Score:2)
Over simplification (Score:2)
The republicans and democrats are not flip sides. Americans like simple answers even when simple answers are not adequate and this ethos of the culture causes a great many of the nations problems (but they do not full grasp this because again, they cling to simple short answers.)
I would argue that a large reason for the two party duopoly is a reflection of the culture.
I've volunteered at both just for the experience. They differ greatly. Republicans are a more authoritarian culture and the Democrats are mor
Re: (Score:2)
"...the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"
Re: (Score:3)
I used to say the same thing, but I plan on looking at it more closely in the coming months. I want to see how much of Obama's spending is investment and how much is "waste". The US's infrastructure is falling apart. Reducing to a household analogy, there is a difference between house debt and bar debt.
However, having to switch to walking/bicycling to your job because you refused to get your car repaired to save money hampers income prospects no matter which debt you are paying off.
Re: (Score:2)
Go read about Buddy Roemer [wikipedia.org]
From an outsider perspective this guys seems to be your best hope.
Re: (Score:3)
Umm, I don't know if you noticed or not, but Obama hasn't shrunk the debt at all--he's grown it at a pace worse than Bush.
Mind you, Bush was undeniably horrible. But the takeaway here is this: there is NO SUCH THING as a "small government Republican" anymore.
Actually paying for the horrendous bills run up by the Bush administration can not correctly be labeled as growing the debt. Nice try. The numbers, all of them, are a matter of public record, there for anyone to to look at and analyze. Those to blame for the huge spikes in the deficit, for example, fairly leap off the page. Please stop trying to parrot bullshit Republican talking points here.
Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
The government has grown wildly under all parties. Yeah, I know it is hard to troll when keeping reality in focus.
Re: (Score:2)
end presidential term limits
Re: (Score:2)
So, what is the national debt again?
Funny how distorted the discussion has become. The GP was talking about the size of the government, not the size of the national debt. You can have high deficit small government, and small deficit big government.
You have to understand that the government deficit is really just the mirror image of the private surplus plus the external surplus [creditwritedowns.com]. Once you understand the sectoral balances (as explained in the linked article), you can chill out about the deficit and debt and start worrying about the things that r
Re: (Score:2)
Funny how distorted the discussion has become. The GP was talking about the size of the government, not the size of the national debt. You can have high deficit small government, and small deficit big government.
OK great. I'll restate for you.
So, how many federal employees and agencies are there again? How many last year, and the year before?
The government has grown wildly under all parties. Yeah, I know it is hard to troll when keeping reality in focus.
Re: (Score:2)
The government has grown wildly under all parties.
I have not questioned that.
What I'm saying is that the question of big vs. small government is orthogonal to the question of the government's budget balance. That may seem like hair splitting, but it's really not. When you take a look at Modern Monetary Theory economists, you'll see a very wide variety of political opinion on the question of where they stand on big or small government (Warren Mosler [moslereconomics.com] is a good example, but of course their opinions are usually much more subtle).
But they all agree that the de
Re: (Score:2)
However, your assumption that deficit spending is a red herring, and even further may be beneficial is flawed. That is the part I consider trolling. However, it is clear that you actually believe it, so it is not trolling but something, as you say, depressing.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying he doesn't deserve 'some' credit for not spending it all, but the surplus was more related to how fast the economy was growing than a cut-back in government spending.
Re: (Score:2)
But perhaps we are being unfair to former President Clinton. After all, in inflation-adjusted terms, Clinton had overseen a total spending increase of only 3.5 percent at the same point in his administration. More importantly, after his first three years in office, non-defense discretionary spending actually went down by 0.7 percent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In a word (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom to starve, Freedom to enjoy the fresh open air, freedom to be bullied by corporations ....
Small Government is bad it can't protect you
Big Government is bad it over protects you ... ..as always the median is the ideal
Re: (Score:2)
Obsessing over government size is stupid and just causes people to try to fix the wrong problem.
Would having a smaller number of voters be superior to a larger number of voters?
Only if you somehow get the right (good quality) small bunch of voters. Otherwise if you pick the wrong small bunch you'd be screwed.
Re: (Score:2)
He was the best one! Never pissed anyone off.
Hillary disagrees with you.
Re: (Score:2)
Social Security and Medicare aren't future debt; they're CURRENT debt. They hold the same US Treasury bonds as anyone else, can sell them to anyone else, and collect on them the same as anyone else. That particular debt is merely shuffled away into "Intragovernmental Holdings".
But yes, your overall point is correct. There was no surplus anymore than I can show a surplus in my personal budget by taking out a personal loan of $100,000. "Look, ma! I had a hundred grand surplus this year!"
Re: (Score:2)
Clinton had a budget surplus.
No he didn't. It may have existed on paper, but in reality, the total debt grew under Clinton and every other President since Eisenhower. The last time we had a real surplus (as in, we took in more money than we spent) was 1956. Don't trust me; go to the US Dept of Treasury's website and look at the numbers yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically Clinton didn't raid the Social Security trust fund. By law, all excess funds from normal operations (withholdings taken in minus benefits paid out and administrative expenses) at the end of the fiscal year are used to purchase US Treasuries. That money is then dumped into the general fund (as if it just dropped from Heaven).
This happens each and every year, by law. Clinton didn't do anything special; he just fought with the Republicans in Congress over spending (what to spend money on; not so mu
Chicago politics ... (Score:1)
as fiber is near lot's of rail lines (Score:2)
And Chicago is full of them.
Re: (Score:2)
By coincidence, guess where a major USAF data center is...Scott AFB [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
As an IT guy associated with USAF IT for 20+ years I can assure that the Scott AFB data center has nothing to do with Obama being president. The Air Force Communications Agency (under many names) has been located at Scott for over 30 years and the Communications Agency folks naturally favor putting this kind of stuff close to where they live. In one form or an other that data center has been there since the seventies. Also probably related to the number of communications lines that go through the region to
Grammar Police (Score:2)
And the beat goes on (Score:1)
I'm counting down the days until the "Feds Now Plan to Open 1,200 Data Centers" Slashdot story when the consolidate/separate pendulum swings back the other way. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for maximizing resource utilization and reducing unnecessary duplication, but do wonder what's being sacrificed in the process. Hopefully just unnecessary PHBs...
What happens to the hardware? (Score:1)
Government auction? That's a lot of computer bits...
Re: (Score:2)
Start here [govliquidation.com]
What qualifies as a "Data Center"? (Score:3)
3,133 Data Centers? Does some computer-savvy worker taking some initiative to back up the PC's in the Outer Podunk Forestry Station by sticking a cheap NAS box in the closet underneath the shelves of tree-climbing gear count as a "Data Center"?
Re: (Score:1)
Since they include "telcom closets" now the answer is likely yes. I've lots of dumb stuff labeled as a telcom closet
Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"? (Score:5, Informative)
The memos that talk about the data centers make the criteria clear. A "data center is defined as: *Any room that is greater than 500 square feet and devoted to data processing; and, * Meets one of the tier (I, II, III & IV) classifications defined by the Uptime Institute."
If you are surprised that the US Federal government has more than 3,000 of those -- welcome to the (not-so-)new bureaucracy, trying hard to pretend it is a technocracy.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes it does. It must be 'devoted to data processing'. Of course, they never define 'data processing', so maybe it it were a digital camera, they'd still consider it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's a big difference between "two for 600 employees" and "one per 300 employees". The former is (likely) 1+backup for all employees, whereas the latter is just wasteful stupidity. I'm guessing if your employer doubles its headcount, it will not expand to four datacenters to support them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe the problem is that the federal government has too many employees to start with. They don't generate wealth or create jobs, so maybe we could start with getting rid of a bunch of those jobs. Starting with the TSA. Next we move to the Drug Czar's office, then the Department of Education.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, the government doesn't generate any wealth whatsoever, they just:
1) Allow wealth generation to happen at all (by maintaining roads, public transit, police forces, fire departments, and other services necessary to the functioning of a modern society)
2) Encourage wealth generation indirectly (by providing free or subsidized education that creates a more knowledgeable population, by providing libraries, museums, and other cultural institutes that extend that availability of education (artistic, cultural,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everything in your list is something that the individual states provide, NOT the federal government. Or at least it used to be that way.
If I have a problem with local roads, police, schools, etc. then I should be able to go to my city, or at the very worst, my state capital to protest. When the Federal government takes stuff over, no one will listen unless I pad their pockets with cash.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Half of the money for interstates comes from the state, not the feds. And the feds are fine helping with some interstates, the Constitution grants that authority under the "interstate commerce" clause. I drive a lot in NC, TX, VA, and the state highways aren't bad, so not sure where you live.
It used to be that scientific research was done by Universities (state supported) and private enterprise. I don't think that is such a bad thing. After the fiasco with the govt. "investing" in solar technology, I th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So instead of giving them 500 million dollars, we should have given them 10 billion? No, the problem was that Solara padded Obama's pockets, they were in difficulties before the cash infusion, and there is nothing to show for our 500 million dollars. I noticed all their top position people never missed a paycheck as well.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd suspect it's something pretty close to that. Not necessarily everyone with a box that they call a server, but more likely every department who allocated a space as a "server room" or "datacenter". Someone else said it had to be 500 sq/ft with some other qualifications.
I do wonder if there are, for example, multiple agencies with their own spaces at places like Equinix.
Having so many diverse spaces is good for no single point of failure, but bad for manage
uh oh... (Score:2)
I work on this effort and it's horribly misguided (Score:5, Informative)
I applaud the efforts to consolidate and streamline government to prevent waste. However, the government, at least in Homeland Security, has no idea what they are doing when it comes to managing the data centers. They want to consolidate ALL Homeland Security assets into TWO data centers. Firstly, from a security perspective, two isn't really enough...need a bit more diversity than that (though certainly not the hundreds out there).
Worse yet is that one is not even owned by the government, but rather a Fortune computer company...which means that when the contract is up, they can increase the rates exorbitantly so, and the government has nothing they can do about it. Why? Because otherwise they would need to migrate all of these systems, which takes several years, at least. Way to go.
The contracts are already so screwed up...e.g. if we need to recable a government system, and we go and do the work, the company which owns the datacenter contract still gets paid as if they did the work. But we have to do it, because they always screw it up. Whoever wrote those contracts should be shot by us tax-payers.
Further, both are in flood zones, one is in a frequent hurricane zone (lightning/wind already took out our power systems once), and both are relatively east coast...really poor choices, geographically.
Oh right, and let's not forget that with all these systems migrating over, we are now seeing significant power and space concerns in the data centers. Shocked? Did the government ever determine the combined, used square footage of existing data centers and compare that with the data centers we are migrating to? I doubt it, or we wouldn't have such stupid issues. I'm sorry, but these data centers the government is migrating to are large, but by no means the largest I've ever seen. And they expect over 3000 data centers to roll up in them.
It's like they never went to kindergarten and are trying to jam a massive round ball into a tiny square hole with a big plastic hammer.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Guy's dead on. I see it, too. For extra fun, sometimes "closing" a data center means throwing away all the working equipment and buying completely new equipment to replace it in a different data center. I have no earthly idea how they think they're going to save any money. They just get a metric in their head and run with it. Fewer data centers is better, no matter what, right?
Re: (Score:3)
I feel your pain.
> if we need to recable a government system, and we go and do the work, the company which owns the datacenter contract still gets paid as if they did the work. But we have to do it, because they always screw it up.
It's not just governments that trap themselves into this kind of contract.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, at a previous employer one group of our data centers or co-locations had some pretty lousy techs. I had worked over the phone to remotely have some one off equipment cabled up and it was complete fail sauce. Eventually, I decided to stop wasting our money as I was scheduled to go out to do maintenance anyway. My cabling worked quite fine and the time they wasted would have paid for the flight and hotel.
Oddly, they had to borrow my onsite equipment to do the work as well. We kept fully stocked shelve
Re: (Score:2)
Actually if the data centers contracted do shoddy work can't they be pursued for breach or a false claims act?
Just because it's the feds doesn't mean its magically ok to screw them.
Re: (Score:2)
Same thing is happening at my work. They are doing massive DC consolidation to the east coast. The fail-over DC is also on the east coast. Smart thinking!!!
What also gets me is part of the consolidation is for possible company divestitures. The only thing is they want to close a DC in a bldg where the potential divestiture will occur. So we close a DC only to sell the business in the bldg requiring them to reopen a DC and migrate everything back into it.
Re: (Score:2)
Gotta agree. I know of more than one USAF owned Data Center that have less than 25% usage. Instead of consolidating USAF resources into the unused and almost brand new datacenter on an USAF owned and operated installation we are putting resources into the IBM owned and operated ABL and paying IBM for the privilege.
Why not consolidate into your own facilities? Because the US CIO made some off-hand comment about the ABL and consolidating into and all of a sudden that is the directive when the CIO meant consol
Re: (Score:2)
Because some powerful senator's got the benefiting private company in his district.
Lobbying is heavily involved here too. (Score:1)
Sadly I wish we knew 100% for sure these closures and other initiatives were about really saving money. Look at the very one-sided, corporate-commercial-cloud-services-or-die Defense bill recently signed into law. Someone just got a huge lobbying bonus.
Now there's a great idea, let's put highly sensitive DoD traffic into the same data centers as any other person can buy space into... instead of using the DoD's own cloud computing centers that are located in secure facilities, have dedicated staff with clear
Colo? (Score:2)
Please lie to me and tell me this will be followed by government auction colos, with fat pipes already laid. Might be a good time to pick up rack space cheap. Or we might be just looking at lists of broom closets with two poweredge 1850s in them.
Seriously though, federal auctions are the best place to get used, yet reasonably current hardware cheap. I got a laptop a year ago which still has warranty left that way (had to add a hdd).
FAA (Score:2)
The FAA has it's headquarters in DC (makes sense) major offices in Seattle (Boeing/Aerospace) and Chicago (Boeing and major flight hub) - all make sense. The FAA's big data center is in... Oklahoma City.
Re:FAA (Score:4, Interesting)
Every plane registered is stored there, the logistics center is there, and their academy is located there too.
Why did OKC reach this prominence? Of all the lower 48 states, it has the best flying weather for most of the year.
and SABRE, and Tinker, and Douglas Aircraft, (Score:3)
and a crapload of other aviation stuff that has been in oklahoma historically.
anyways.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oklahoma City is where their Aeromedical Division is, those are the folks that make sure you aren't allowed to be a pilot if you aren't perfectly healthy or haven't been all your life - e.g. if you had hay fever as a child or something.
While you're at it... (Score:2)
Auction (Score:2)
So, anyone know where I can go to try and purchase some of this hardware? My guess is it will be sold off extremely cheap.
Need a few more dev servers!
Useless data centers (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not needed anymore because:
1) the big hardware vendors already made their money
2) the contractors who installed and configured the hardware already made their money
3) the corrupt purchasing officials have already made their money from the bribes they got from the hardware vendors and the contractors
4) the software vendors will keep racking up software maintenance fees since all those physical servers will become VMs
It's called "greed computing".
Re: (Score:2)
wow, this is painful. There truly is no money to be made from letting a sleeping dog lie. As government budgets must be spent, and there is rarely anyone that actually avoids useless spending of this money, then obviously the thing to do when all installations are done and running is not maintain and monitor, but to scrap it all and rebuild a new way. If this initiative is brought to large scale public attention, we will get to see a lot of spin on job creation and "green-ness".
This will result in 7,000 data centers (Score:2)
Of course the results of any government mandated reduction is an explosion of growth. The first thing to happen is an audit to identify all these facilities. It gets passed up the food chain where some under deputy flunky discovers the true size of his or her empire. Then they all move in unison to protect their own at everyone else's expense. This results in everything being reclassified as critical, they are all protected and then they discover how to exploit their own budget process to make them grow and
Auctioned Equipment Response: (Score:2)
We have virtualized something like ~200 physical servers in our Data Center. Most were End Of Life (HP DL G4 360's and 380's) and were virtualized instead of replaced.
Our main DataCenter (Class 2?) has functionally freed more than 1/2 of it's space, and had departmental servers from "other Server Rooms" (aka: 10'x25' rooms with two racks) moved down there.
Do you really want
in soviet russia (Score:3)
the data centers count you!!!
Re: (Score:2)
Just be aware that over-consolidation can also cause problems. A very centralized solution means that any downtime will cost a lot more.
And even when things works as they should you may suffer from the little devil called network latency that slowly eats up man-hours.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you keep a straight face while typing that?
Re: (Score:2)
Better yet move your stuff to the ABL. Not even DISA owned. Can't provide a cost list to host stuff (6 months ago)? But lets move everything there because it will save money.