B&L Associates

Government agencies learning data consolidation, migration lessons

December 9, 2011

The Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative represents a bold step forward for IT efficiency in the public sector. And as the project unfolds, the lessons learned by government agencies currently undergoing transformations can provide valuable insight to organizations of all kinds contemplating their own data migration or consolidation projects.

According to CIO.gov, growing media management requirements forced federal agencies to quadruple their number of data centers in operation between 1998 and 2010. However, basic issues of efficiency grew more significant with scale, stretching taxpayer dollars in the process.

To address these concerns, federal chief information officer Steven VanRoekel has expanded upon the Obama administration's original IT efficiency goals.

"After more than a year of consolidation work, agencies now plan to close 962 data centers through 2015, with 472 to be closed by the end of the next calendar year," VanRoekel explained in an October announcement.

Despite these lofty goals, early progress reports have indicated mixed results, with some agencies encountering unexpected roadblocks.

According to FierceGovernmentIT, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one agency gaining insight from a deeper analysis of its operation. When tasked with migrating one legacy system to a Department of Homeland Security data center, ICE officials discovered that their storage integration strategy was far more complex than they ever realized. As a result, they will be pursuing a simpler and more efficient set up in the future.

"Moving everything to a consolidated data center we're actually beginning to standardize and streamline our processes," ICE project manager Brent Bushley told the news source.

However, Bushley cautioned against the temptation to "standardize for standardizing sake." As he explained to FierceGovernmentIT, the "easy road" is rarely the best strategy, and organizations must be smart to ensure their data consolidation strategies align with their unique needs and are not simply mirror images of a competitor's approach.