US Gov't To Close 137 Data Centers In 2011, More By 2015

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."

Comments

Eggs

[MrEricSir]

Put all your eggs in one basket -- what could possibly go wrong?

Re:Eggs

[Random2]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Eggs

[JoeCommodore]

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.

Re:Eggs

[poity]

10 years ago:
Government to expand number of data centers
"More points of failure -- what could possibly go wrong?"

Slashdot is never satisfied.

Re:Eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Bloopie]

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.

Re:Eggs

[sconeu]

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.

Re:Eggs

[jpapon]

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.

Re:Eggs

[sorak]

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 politicians willing to say something like "we spent 20 million dollars trying to get rid of a few sysadmins in your state, and this is Obama's idea of cost savings"

Re:Eggs

[Dishevel]

I am betting that with 2000 baskets they still are coming up short when it comes to redundancy, availability, cost, scalability and security.

Re:Eggs

[FatdogHaiku]

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...

Re:Eggs

[turbidostato]

"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'".

Re:Eggs

[Kjella]

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 other in case of failure, it means there's excessively many. At least it did originally, the idea that "redundant system" ~= "robust system that handles component failure" is only recent. But language is an evolving thing so if enough people use it differently, the meaning will change.

Re:Eggs

[WhiteDragon]

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! :-)

Re:Eggs

[AmberBlackCat]

I would have thought putting everything one place was the opposite of what "cloud computing" is about.

Re:Eggs

[slick7]

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.

Not "leet"

[DudeTheMath]

For a moment, I thought they were closing 1337 data centers.

summary of problems

[Hazel Bergeron]

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'

[MarkH]

Google have ones needing a hydro-electric plant to power.

Our it team call the locked cabinet downstairs as another

Re:Definition of a 'data centre'

[Cramer]

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.)

Re:Definition of a 'data centre'

[kwbauer]

just that you don't adhere to societal norms.

Re:used servers for sale where?

[couchslug]

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...

[lax-goalie]

...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.

Re:Hope they don't outsource to Northrop Grumman..

[elrous0]

No worries, I'm sure Northrop Grumman will bid on the contract to fix it.

does vivek know wtf he's doing?

[jsepeta]

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

he's also not to be trusted.
http://gawker.com/#!5174642/obamas-thieving-geek-guilty-of-bad-taste

Re:Great...

[Gogo0]

a lot of this stuff is more going to virtual servers (consolidation) than a massive centralized data center.
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 any sysadmins (though a few have to move offices). regardless of manpower, thats $datacenters - 1 in the grand DoD scheme of things.

other stuff like the "cloud" (bullshit term for a DoD owned centralized data center) exchange server migration does remove a lot of servers, but most working IT in the DoD know that everyone does dozens of jobs already and losing one server (even an exchange server) just means you have more time to focus on all your other projects. we also get bigger mailboxes and it costs a lot less, seems like a good deal.