Obama Administration Closing Recently Opened Datacenters

An anonymous reader writes "After quadrupling the number of government datacenters over his first three years, Obama's Administration is reversing course and closing the most recently opened datacenters. With one datacenter reportedly the size of three football fields, my question is what happens to all those recently purchased servers? Will the government hold a server fire sale? Count me in!"

Comments

Gubmint in Action:

[Cornwallis]

Ready, Fire, Aim!

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Lemme guess: new FEMA internment camps?

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire! Ready? Aim.

FTFY

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[sycodon]

The Government is off its meds.

Only that could account for the schizoid policy decisions.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

You have heard of the Republican party - right?

There's a reason they're off the meds - its cos the republicans have cut medicare

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[ischorr]

There is a bit of a mandate at the moment to reduce government debt/growth. There's far too much dysfunctional, ideological infighting to do this effectively or efficiently.

Since we apparently can't reduce ANY spending to the military (a few less $1B planes?) or on a variety of wars, and our economy would collapse if we ended recent tax breaks on the rich, the money has to come from SOMEwhere. One of those places is IT spending. Another is NASA. Another is medical research grants. (And a variety of scientific, infrastructure, and social programs).

This is indirectly related to the game of hostage-taking that's being played with the US economy that resulted in this week's major market correction and credit downgrade.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[The Grim Reefer2]

You have heard of the Republican party - right?

There's a reason they're off the meds - its cos the republicans have cut medicare

Strange, I thought GWB was the president who signed Medicare Part D into law. ;-)

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[wsxyz]

There is a bit of a mandate at the moment to reduce government debt/growth. There's far too much dysfunctional, ideological infighting to do this effectively or efficiently.

Since we apparently can't reduce ANY spending to the military (a few less $1B planes?) or on a variety of wars

Talk to Leon Panetta about that one.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[operagost]

Also strange-- it's mostly Dems who voted for the health care bill last year that CUT MEDICARE.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[operagost]

Since we apparently can't reduce ANY spending to the military

Wrong. $350 billion was just cut in the BCA, with about 600 billion more if other cuts are not agreed on by the deadline. Far too little, of course, but a start. An average of $35 billion a year is, indeed, 35 of your planes.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[billstewart]

Nah - FEMA wouldn't use that much air conditioning.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

Entitlements are the problem. Cutting a few $1B planes won't do crap.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

WE are off our meds. We have voted for these kind of stuff dozens of times in a row. I don't blame them for giving us what we demand. Any time a candidate for office says, "Let's stop doing all this stupid shit," we tell them, 99 to 1, "fuck off, we're unhappy that you were even on the ballot, much less that some traitorous splitter might actually vote for you, thereby giving victory to the worst guy." As long as that's our attitude, we're going to get what we deserve.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

Entitlements are the problem.

Citation needed

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Gilmoure]

If they got rid of two of the tires on each gov't vehicle, I bet they could save a lot of money.

Hey, I just made my first car anthology!

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[fafaforza]

Sure, cuts are on the table these days. But how silly is it to spend millions to build datacenters only to shut them down? I just hope they sell them at a market price or rent them out. Maybe hire a management company to put customers in there. What a waste it would be. This is real money from everyone's pocket that's used to build a datacenter that will sit dormant. None of us would build a house just to let it sit empty.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hey, I just made my first car anthology!

You just made a short story collection on the theme "cars"?

Or perhaps you meant car analogy?

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Major elections are decided 99 to 1. (facepalm)

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Quiet_Desperation]

Hey, I just made my first car anthology!

You always remember your first.

Muffins for all!

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

unfunded liabilities

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

No this is sour grapes politics. If your forced to do something you don't want to do. Just do a really bad job at what your being forced to do. A good example of this is California where they keep saying there going to need to lay off Police, Firemen, Teachers and road workers. Instead of the cutting funding for less things like which sea otter floats better.

Obama wants to make it look like cutting spending is a bad idea. Best way to do that is to cut important spending first or even better make cuts that coast us more money down the line. The media does love him, so they probably help him spin it.

Now, I hate to use the word but Cloud computing. The Federal Government should setup its own cloud data centers including data-center redundancy for all goverment IT projects. This would save a boat load. The goverment is more then big enough to see a huge benefit from centralizing and vitalizing all of it servers. Think about it. You want a new .gov website, just file the paper work with the Federal Cloud.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Dunbal]

An average of $35 billion a year is, indeed, 35 of your planes.

You mean those hundred million dollar planes that don't fly?

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Dunbal]

Just about as silly as it is to build mass transit systems connecting Jersey and New York, only to shut them down. This is government at its finest.

None of us would build a house just to let it sit empty.

Er, take a look around you at all the empty houses. Apparently some people do.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[riverat1]

Of course what the Affordable Care Act cut in Medicare was the subsidies for Medicare Advantage plans that cost 10-20% more than just straight Medicare. In the future, after a phase out period, those people choosing Medicare Advantage won't be subsidized above what regular Medicare recipients receive.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Grishnakh]

It's also Obama who signed the recent debt deal.

What's the point in voting for a Democrat when they're just going to do the exact same thing as a Republican? (Or maybe worse: when Bush was Pres, 6-year-olds didn't have to worry about being molested at airports.)

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Grishnakh]

Yes, it is 99 to 1. Look at the last Presidential election. What percentage of the voters voted for the Democrat/Republicans? About 99%. What percentage voted for someone different? About 1%.

(facepalm) yourself.

The funny thing is how many people still think there's a significant difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. This latest debt deal that Obama pushed through should be proof against that fallacy.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Grishnakh]

None of us would build a house just to let it sit empty.

Er, take a look around you at all the empty houses. Apparently some people do.

Ever hear the saying, "None of us are as dumb as all of us"? The empty houses and the government actions are all perfect examples of this. The parent is right: NONE (or, spelled out, no one) of us would build a house just to let it sit empty. It's just idiotic and wasteful to do so. But when you get large groups of people together, there's no telling what kind of stupidity will result. The larger the group, the stupider the doings. This is why we need to just break up the country into smaller regional nations. Smaller countries aren't as corrupt and stupid as larger countries (at least when there's a democratic government in place; this doesn't apply to authoritarian governments because they're run by a small group of people who don't answer to the populace).

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Darinbob]

Just last week the government wandered off out of the nursing home, causing a lot of market turmoil until some staffers tracked it down to a Denny's.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Darinbob]

I think he meant car anomaly.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[fafaforza]

I don't think that comparing this to the housing bubble is correct. At the very least, someone owns these homes, and will try to resell them, rent them out, etc. Will the government do the same? Or will they just sell the land, and have those build-outs get demolished? All that money paid to contractors and consultants, for naught.

I'd bet a private owner is more keen to squeeze every ounce of value out of a vacant home than the nameless, faceless bureaucracy of the federal government. Someone in there will just write a datacenter off and have it demolished w/out realizing the waste taking place.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[AmonTheMetalhead]

None of us would build a house just to let it sit empty.

Er, take a look around you at all the empty houses. Apparently some people do.

Ever hear the saying, "None of us are as dumb as all of us"? The empty houses and the government actions are all perfect examples of this. The parent is right: NONE (or, spelled out, no one) of us would build a house just to let it sit empty. It's just idiotic and wasteful to do so. But when you get large groups of people together, there's no telling what kind of stupidity will result. The larger the group, the stupider the doings. This is why we need to just break up the country into smaller regional nations. Smaller countries aren't as corrupt and stupid as larger countries (at least when there's a democratic government in place; this doesn't apply to authoritarian governments because they're run by a small group of people who don't answer to the populace).

Clearly you never heard of Belgium

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[O('_')O_Bush]

There is a good reason for that though, a lot of defense spending goes to defense contractors, who employ a whole 'lotta people (LMC has downsized from 150K to 120K employees from budget cuts, and its just one company).

The administration already doesn't want to look like a job killer, and defense spending is definitely not the best area to do that.

And due to US secrecy laws/export control, contractors don't have the option of selling their technology to the highest bidder most of the time. Instead they have the option of selling to the U.S. or not selling it at all... which means defense cuts are almost 1:1 with job loses for PhD's, engineers, scientists, and others of our nation's brightest.

That being said, backing out of the War would be a good move towards austerity in my opinion, and wouldn't have the same economic impact.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[BigDogCH]

"This is why we need to just break up the country into smaller regional nations."

Don't we already have this with the states? So, you believe in giving more power to the states, and less to the Fed. I agree....just clarifying.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Snaller]

Well since the hillbilly slackers refuse to pay the taxes (*) required in a civilized contemporary society, government have no choice but to sell of stuff and scrap dreams.

(* US already has some of the lowest taxes in the western world, and still they whine)

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

There are significant differences between Democrats and Republicans at a policy level and at demographic and socioeconomic levels. However, these differences are in only a few areas, like abortion, gay rights, health care, and the estate tax.

They are very important areas, but there are *many* policy decisions where the two parties are essentially in alignment, thus effectively disenfranchising voters who want to vote for other policies. Drug policies, campaign finance reform, free trade, underfunding criminal justice, lack of consumer protection, Copyright Reform, Patent Reform, the patriot act, etc...

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

They stopped ordering new F-22s.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

With market value as they are, there are many houses it would be profitable even if you had them sit empty.

It would be *more* profitable to have someone in them, almost always, but it would be profitable to have them empty.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Grishnakh]

I've heard of it, but I haven't heard of many problems there in recent decades, aside from the diamond business being located there. I'm sure it ranks higher on standard-of-living indices than the USA, just like most European countries. I never said smaller countries weren't corrupt at all, or that they always did everything right, I only contend that it's not as bad there, assuming a similar level of public education. With worse education, it'll be worse however, as democracies rely on an educated citizenry to make good choices for their leaders, and that's why third-world democracies generally don't do very well. I think it's safe to assume that Belgium, like most western European countries, has better public education than the USA.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Grishnakh]

Not really; I'll explain.

1) These days, the States have very little power at all. They don't even have much control over their own funding, as they get most of it from the Federal government, which gets it from federal income taxes, borrowing from China, etc. The Federal government constantly interferes in State affairs with abuse of the commerce clause of the constitution. This isn't new, it's been going on since the Civil War; in fact, our founding fathers argued over it, and divided into two camps, the Federalists and the anti-Federalists. And if you remember before that, they even tried a Confederation before the Constitution, but that didn't work out which is why the Constitution was devised. To my understanding, the basic problems with the Articles of Confederation were that they couldn't stay united with the states having more power, and they desperately wanted to stay united because the British were still threatening to come back and take over (which they tried in 1812).

In my opinion, the climate that made it necessary to have unity back around 1800 (British aggression, etc.) are no longer present, plus the population of all the states is much larger than it was before, so unity is simply no longer necessary. Unlike 1790, the USA in 2011 is one of the largest countries in the world, both in land area (#3 or #4) and in population (#3), and has probably the largest economy. It doesn't need to stay united to survive or weather external threats.

2) Now, the problem with simply disbanding the union and letting all 50 states go their own way is that the states really are too small on their own, IMO. Plus, they aren't really divided along any real boundaries, only arbitrary ones. In other countries, boundaries are frequently drawn along ethnic lines, so a single country comprises a group of people that largely think alike and have a similar culture. That's not the case here; there's lots of states where if you put people to a vote, they'd probably be happy to split the state in half. Much of Illinois would be happier without Chicago dominating their politics and forcing their decisions on the rest of them. Same goes for New York and NYC. Check out this link for a plan some guy in the 1970s came up with to redraw the state boundaries along more sensible lines. Of course, things have changed in the last 40 years, but overall it's a pretty good idea I think, grouping together more like-minded people. As someone whew grew up in east Tennessee, this map makes total sense because we had nothing in common with the people of Memphis, and this plan splits off the western part of the state and combines it with northern MS and part of AK, which makes more sense to me. It also combines upper east TN with western VA, most of WV, and eastern KY, which makes total sense as all those regions are culturally similar. The end effect is 1) fewer total states, which is more efficient governmentally, and 2) eliminating the problem where metro areas span states, which is always a big problem--just ask the Oregon and Washington governments, where a lot of people live in southern WA where there's no income taxes, than drive to work in OR and shop there because there's no sales taxes. As the website author points out, "The 'straddling' of State lines causes economic and political problems. Who should pay for a rapid transit system in St. Louis? Only those citizens within the boundaries of Missouri, or all residents of St. Louis's metropolitan area, including those who reach over into the State of Illinois?" This plan puts metro areas squarely within state boundaries to eliminate these problems.

38 individual states organized this way, all on their own, would be better than the 50 we currently have, but I think they're still too small, and would either need some kind of economic confederation like the EU, or perhaps they could group themselves into a handful (5-10) of larger, regional countries for better efficiency. For instance, going with the 38 states

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Grishnakh]

I see your point, but I wonder if much of it isn't simply a sideshow to intentionally keep people distracted (i.e., abortion and gay rights) while they work together to pursue their common agenda. After all, the Republicans have been pro-life/anti-choice for ages, but abortion has been legal since the 70s, even during periods where the Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House (like Bush's first 6 years). It doesn't seem like they pursue it in legislative sessions as vigorously as they speak about it when they're giving speeches to the evangelical voters.

They differ on health care, but not the way people think. The Reps want no publicly-funded healthcare at all, which is obvious, while the Dems want vastly overpriced privately-funded healthcare which enriches their buddies in the insurance industry, as that's exactly what they passed when they had control of the government.

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[cyberstealth1024]

I want banana nut! (oh, and congrats to GP :-D )

Re:Gubmint in Action:

[Quiet_Desperation]

I just noticed now he said "anthology". The mind is a funny thing.

Timing...

[BWJones]

The wording of this post makes it seem as though the data centers were initiated via policies of the Obama administration. However, the reality is that the data center expansion occurred during the policy of the previous Bush administration with funding requested in 2006, approved in 2007 and implementation initiated in 2008 a full year before the Obama administration took office. The Obama administration approved the continuation of the policy in 2009 and 2010 and are currently altering the data center strategy.

Re:Timing...

[astrodoom]

So what you're saying is that the qaudrupling over the last 2 years WAS from the obama administration's continuation of the policy, but they didn't start the policy?

idk, I'm all for specificity, but that seems a bit nitpicky. Either way, they're cutting the data centers now, which is a great move for cutting waste since they're running at 27% utilization. Sad that it means cutting the jobs associated with those data centers, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Re:Timing...

[bennomatic]

Have you ever worked for an organization larger than 1000 employees? Larger than 10,000? I don't know how many people are employed by the federal government, but it's a lot. And there are a lot of programs that have interwoven dependencies. Whether you think that the government should be smaller or not, whether you think that all the programs are worthwhile or not, big decisions have big implications, and it's not usual for large organizations to take several years to make a decision and even longer to implement them.

To that end, it's entirely possible that these datacenters were planned during the Bush years based on policy decisions made in the Clinton era, which were in turn affected by the Reagan/Bush1 years. Wings of a butterfly and all.

The point of the GP was not, as far as I can tell, "BUSH BAD OBAMA GOOD!", but rather, "This is not an example of a bad decision made in haste and reversed in haste."

Re:Timing...

[jellomizer]

When has that ever stopped political finger pointing.

Logic and politics have nothing to do with each other, its all about finding the crazy excuse to support your guy. Who may or may not have anything really to do about any of the problems.

During the Clinton Years The Right was saying how Clinton was befitting from all the long term improvements that Bush Sr and Reagan did years back. And now after a much prolonged recession the Left is still saying it was all Bush Jr. Fault, even after a period of Democratic Majority. Or the left takes the prosperity during the 90's largely due to a tech boom based on the fact that a lot of computers would fail to function in the year 2000 as tribute to Clintons Leadership and the correctness of the Leftist values. Or the Right giving GWB credits for a period of time where home ownership was at its highest.

What it really comes down to there isn't any real logic behind which party is better then the other. But have good and bad values to them. And going all out in any direction will be really bad. And really the president has little effect on our everyday life.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most datacenter cost is ongoing not sunk up front...

Re:Timing...

[bonch]

The very first line of the article starts with "Over the last two years, the number of U.S. data centers has quadrupled." Obama took office more than two years ago. Just because the data centers were initiated under Bush, their quadrupling happened under Obama. You even acknowledge that Obama approved the continuation of the policy.

So really, your post is meaningless because Obama approved the continuation of the policy, and the data centers quadrupled as a result. What does Bush have to do with that?

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a weird way to deflect blame on Bush. The Democrats controlled the Senate and the House in 2006 through 2010, during the times you claim the datacenter policy was both initiated and funding was approved. Obama approved the policy and further expanded the datacenters on his watch. You even acknowledge this. It's not like he's beholden to previous policy, because he's altering the strategy now that political pressure requires him to.

Re:Timing...

[sjames]

The alternative is that at each change of president, we halt all government activity for 3 years and have everyone twiddle their thumbs while new policies are written, and then run those policies for the 4th year.

Any incoming president is obligated by logistics/reality to make carrying on with whatever was happening before the default state. It's highly doubtful that even a 2 term president could find time to review the entire federal government before leaving office even if that was the only duty of the office.

Re:Timing...

[jhoegl]

Republicans dont care if Bush started it, in their eyes anything Obama does is bad, even if it is along their beliefs or party lines, or what Fox News said they should do previous to him actually doing it.

Troll me if you want, but I am tired of this back and forth nitpicky. Get the fuck off your high horse and look at the individual, not the party.
Know your history, party centric nations oriented in pride and blind following lead to bad things. You should all know the wars that were fought, and continue to fight where the opposing nation was based on this.
We are USA, we are individuals coming together for a common goal, to live free from oppression and tyranny. Yet governanced by the majority (supposed to be). Remember your individuality before you "tow the line".

Re:Timing...

[sycodon]

Stuff like this is largely out of the hands of a President. It's part and parcel of the whole Ship of State thing. The Captain only gets to point which way to go. Things go on below desks that he has no clue or real control over.

We are being ruled by bureaucrats.

Re:Timing...

[DarkOx]

No what he is saying is Obama has been in office for three years and is certainly mostly responsible for at least this example of poor government planing, waste, or both. However Obama is his hero and protect his idolized conception of the man he has found a way to lay all the responsibly at the feat of man who has been back in Texas out the spot light for some time now.

Re:Timing...

[wsxyz]

Nice sentiment, but what do you do when one party sees universal health insurance as tyranny and the other sees for-profit health insurance as oppression?

Re:Timing...

[rickb928]

So it really is Bush's fault.

Really. Pathetique. It is SO important that we asess blame accurately, if not correctly. No wonder Washington is broken - we expect so little, and so wrong, of them.

Re:Timing...

[TheLandyman]

You probably havn't worked in a large organization? or on a project with a budget more than 10 million (or even 1 million?!). These things are planned years in advance... you dont show up and fry's and say give me 5000 of your best servers, i need to install them tomorrow. idiot.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans dont care if Bush started it, in their eyes anything Obama does is bad

Obama's policies have been destroying the United States so, it is easy to understand the Republican's sentiment.

At this point, I'm picturing Obama and Biden as Thelma and Louise unfortunately, the car they are driving is the US economy!

Re:Timing...

[CannonballHead]

Seems that, for the most part, economic booms aren't tied to specific government intervention, manipulation, etc. Shocking.

(i.e., the government can influence and manipulate the economy, but that doesn't appear to be the best way it happens; good economies seem to come not from government policy but from private enterprise and people creating goods/services that other people want...)

Re:Timing...

[NatasRevol]

over the last 2 years WAS from the obama administration's continuation of the policy, but they didn't start the policy?

Just like the Bush tax cuts, wars in Iraq & Afganistan, and massive military spending.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "toe the line", genius. Unless you're actually towing a party line with some kind of political pickup truck.

Re:Timing...

[Qzukk]

Try and figure out how to make healthcare affordable enough that you don't need the government or some other insurance company to pay for it for you?

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Republican and I'm for universal health care - in fact I'd go as far as to say healthcare and military are the only aspects of government that should exist at all - what the Obama Healthcare Plan did was not universal healthcare - it made it a requirement to buy health insurance and gave the insurance companies providing it a hefty tip for providing something they already provided, gauranteed more customers so they could drastically reduce marketing, sales and customer service divisions - and required an IT plan pretty much identical to what was already required of them under HIPAA. It was nothing but an insurance company bailout in disguise to avoid the public scrutiny of the previous ones.

Re:Timing...

[kenh]

Too bad Obama wasn't in the Senate to influence these decisions... Oh, wait...

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who signed the spending bills from 2001-2008?

Bush

Who signed the spending bills from 2009-2011?

Obama

Place the blame where it is appropriate.

Re:Timing...

[ShavedOrangutan]

The chosen one has had almost a whole term - most of it with no political opposition whatsoever. It's time to accept the fact that he isn't any better than the last president.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

You logically and orderly and by-the-book, discuss and vote on it. No bull$hit, no closed contents of bill until they are passed, no blocking on principle, no pointless hate. It's the political system, and it's made up of people with minds of their own, be them open or closed, corruptable or not. The reality is that the can't or won't change until the people act and the masses like having their head in the sand, so the rest of us have to deal with it. It's the short sighted BS on all sides of party affiliations that is running the US into the ground. The trend has become to make decisions for today or for the next election, not for the years ahead.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's important to remember that it will always, always, be Bush's fault, no matter what. Do not question the Liberal narrative!

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

So it really is Bush's fault. Really. Pathetique. It is SO important that we asess blame accurately, if not correctly.

Neither Bush nor Obama had anything to do with this unless you think they care that one of the hundreds of agencies in the gigantic bureaucracies they attempt to manage was building a data center. If the fact of the data centers ever crossed their desk, it was buried in a bigger document with a wider scope.

What does the President do? He could manage the two wars we're fighting or the economy, he could try to destroy|save Social Security and Medicare, or he could worry about some fscking data centers. I expect he has people to worry about the data centers.

Re:Timing...

[hedwards]

Look for ways to fund education.

Re:Timing...

[Wovel]

You're to reasonable. GTFO before you ruin /.

Re:Timing...

[operagost]

Because after all, once plans have been written or orders put in place, the President is helpless to cancel them. Idiot.

Re:Timing...

[networkBoy]

you just gave me a great idea.
We'll make a party line of congresscritters (with rope or something that does not depend on one individual's structural integrity to maintain the line) and we'll tow it behind my hybrid* truck down the interstate as fast as I can go.
Thus we will "Tow the line".
-nB

*My truck runs on hydrogen atoms, conveniently packaged by holding them with carbon chains, polar bears, baby seals, and hot air from Prius owners.

Re:Timing...

[epine]

The wording of this post bends over backward to place no obstacle into the minds of unthinking ideologues in viewing the matter as though the data centers were initiated via policies of the Obama administration.

FTFY. Despite the virtue of understatement, I'm not sure your obstacle-free version was making sufficient contact with the intended nerve ending. As you get older, you place less emphasis on being on the right side of the debate, and more emphasis on whether any effort is expended to move the debate forward. The malice of elision becomes magnified.

Weasel words are carefully cultivated intrigues of the aggrieved, when the road is hot and dusty, and picnic of complaint on the banks of Mosquito Creek seems preferable to slogging toward a twinkle of illumination on the far horizon.

Re:Timing...

[kwoff]

Republicans dont care if ...

...look at the individual, not the party.

Ahem, take your own advice?

Re:Timing...

[Jeremy Erwin]

We are USA, we are individuals coming together for a common goal, to live free from oppression and tyranny. Yet governanced by the majority (supposed to be). Remember your individuality before you "tow the line".

All right! Let's start stringing together propagandistic boilerplate into poorly constructed, meaningless sentences!

Re:Timing...

[AK Marc]

And who was Bush, Brad Pitt?

Re:Timing...

[wsxyz]

Are you claiming that one position is objectively right and the other objectively wrong, so that a little objective education will solve the problem? Please...

Or maybe you're just advocating ideological indoctrination of children. Nah, no one would ever get away with that...

Re:Timing...

[Svartalf]

Excuse me...aren't you guilty of the same thing right now?

Re:Timing...

[AK Marc]

2 years would be insufficient time to read all the "plans" made in the previous 4 years, let alone come up with and implement counter-plans.

Re:Timing...

[The Grim Reefer2]

Republicans dont care if Bush started it, in their eyes anything Obama does is bad, even if it is along their beliefs or party lines, or what Fox News said they should do previous to him actually doing it.

You're correct, but that cuts both ways. Allow me to demonstrate:

Democrats dont[sic] care if Clinton started it, in their eyes anything Bush does is bad, even if it is along their beliefs or party lines, or what MSNBC said they should do previous to him actually doing it.

Troll me if you want, but I am tired of this back and forth nitpicky. Get the fuck off your high horse and look at the individual, not the party.

I'd rather not be trolled either, but I too am tired of the back-and-forth bickering. I'm also tired of the feigned outrage and rhetoric that both sides utilize. The Republicans claimed the Democrats were going to kill grandma with death panels during the health care debate. The Dems. thought that was completely over the top. But then during this whole budget debate the Democrats claimed the Republicans were going to kill Granny by pushing her over the cliff because the tea-baggers were going to withhold her her SSI check. They're both full of shit.

Know your history, party centric nations oriented in pride and blind following lead to bad things. You should all know the wars that were fought, and continue to fight where the opposing nation was based on this.

I agree with you that everyone should know their history and where they came from. But the way our supposed leaders are running things, I don't think you even need to understand that far back anymore. What they said when they were campaigning seems more pertinent. Did they vote on bills in the manner you thought they would? If not, vote their ass out regardless of what letter was next to their name. Stop keeping people in office because you think a R looks better than a D next to their name, or vise-versa. Actually listen to what they claim they are going to do. If you believe that their ideals meet yours closer than their opposition then vote for them. If they get into office and don't do what they promised, then vote them out the next time.

We are USA, we are individuals coming together for a common goal, to live free from oppression and tyranny. Yet governanced by the majority (supposed to be). Remember your individuality before you "tow the line".

I fear this is more lip-service than reality these days.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably havn't worked in a large organization? or on a project with a budget more than 10 million (or even 1 million?!). These things are planned years in advance... you dont show up and fry's and say give me 5000 of your best servers, i need to install them tomorrow. idiot.

Well, I can tell that you don't on any federal projects. I have worked on projects that had over $10M budgets that were for only one year. I know of another project that has blown thru over $600M in only 3 years. You would be surprised at how quickly money gets allocated and spent on federal projects.

Throughout the federal government, there are large multiple year umbrella contract vehicles. When an organization needs something done, they put the money on the vehicle and with very a very quick turn around, the work gets done. I have done work under two different vehicles. The first vehicle was awarded to 3 prime contractors who are the only ones that are allowed to bid on the individual contracts. On a lot of the individual contracts, only one of the three primes bid on the contract which makes the award very quick. The other vehicle that I have worked on was awarded to one prime contractor and that contractor got to decide if they want to do themselves or sub it out.

I can not say if this is what was done, but if I planning this, I would create one of these umbrella contract vehicles for creating data centers. I would then award it to X number of prime contractors. Since each individual contract will be for a new data center, a very quick standardized process can be developed where you just plug in the required specs for that data center. With in a few months you can decide which prime wins and at most a couple years later you have a new data center.

Re:Timing...

[CrimsonAvenger]

The alternative is that at each change of president, we halt all government activity for 3 years and have everyone twiddle their thumbs while new policies are written, and then run those policies for the 4th year.

Yes, the idea is silly. On the other hand, King Stork hasn't worked so well for us (multiple wars, bad economy), so maybe it's time to give King Log a try....

Re:Timing...

[AK Marc]

The reason it's broken is that the parties are all willing to do evil, so long as that evil can be blamed on the Other Guys. Blame is more important than responsibility.

Re:Timing...

[Quiet_Desperation]

People have in universities and think tanks and other places across the land forever. Google it. There's enough ideas already out there to cobble something together that's a fair mix of public and private and actually works as well as you're ever going to achieve.

The good ideas exist, but good ideas and hope and rainbows and morning dew are not going to make a dent.

The problem is that you're up against forces that can see either a politician's funding cut off, or heavy funding going to his main opponent. Both the government union and corporate thugs here in California have been doing that for years as shown by recent revelations after some reporters got up off their fat asses. They focus on primary elections where things are sketchier, and things can go either way in any district because Party is out of the picture.

Politicians are not stupid- they do this for the money and power and lobbyist whores, and it all makes perfect sense when you just accept the fact of total and complete corruption. They and their cronies are sucking this country dry while the sucking is good. *That's* the plan.

Re:Timing...

[Sponge Bath]

make healthcare affordable enough that you don't need the government

No government means no regulation. That leaves the medical industry to voluntarily reduce prices and profits and not engage in anti-competitive behavior. Given the behavior of the medical industry these last decades, do you really believe that will happen? Bottom line, the only way to MAKE healthcare affordable is through the government.

Re:Timing...

[corran__horn]

The only healthcare system that is that affordable is what happens in Africa: you let people die. Oh, you got appendicitus? Do you have ten-thousand dollars on you? Oh, sorry I guess you will have to use our dying room out front by the grate.

Someone has to be able to pick up for when something unexpected occurs. The hospitals can't magically start charging the same for a flu-shot and a 10 hour operation to save a car-accident victim. Almost anyone can afford the latter, while less than ten percent of the population could afford the latter (real costs, you have 3 nurses, 2 doctors, the support staff, the person who cleans the OR, and all the supplies needed). The only way this works out for society is that someone has to calculate the risk, calculate the bet, and be there when something unexpected happens.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

What sorts of birds do you have over there in fantasy land?

Re:Timing...

[networkBoy]

or the one before that, or the one before that.
Regan wasn't all that bad.

Re:Timing...

[hairyfeet]

Obama was trying to do the classic Keynesian response to an economy in a death spiral and that is for the government to make up for the loss of consumer spending. Well it failed, all it did was delay the inevitable. While they are afraid to say the word, like thinking if you don't say the name of the monster standing right behind you that will magically keep you safe, the simple fact is what they are gonna call a "double dip" is actually the beginnings of a worldwide depression.

In this case we have allowed the corps to ship the jobs overseas but the musical chairs with people's IQ have left more and more and more of the population behind. As technology advances ever faster the simple fact is trading money for labor will become as much of a thing of the past as 8-tracks. Even as we speak they are testing automated construction equipment that can take the raw materials and make perfect roads by using GPS and onboard mapping. Fast food jobs are "make work" that would have already been replaced by automated assembly lines if it were for government assistance making it so the food franchises can hire people below the market wage and let society make up the rest.

In the end there will simply have to be a fundamental shift in the way we do things. The traditional capitalist framework simply breaks down when you have 300 people for every job, and each year that number is gonna jump as more and more high tech jobs will begin to be phased out by the machines, just as the low tech before them. Look at some of the latest things being tested in sever tech, smart servers that know about their own conditions and can monitor and change to suit conditions and even call a tech when they detect a failing part. A job that once took thousands of skilled workers will in the end be able to be done by a handful of low wage button pushers who simply do what the machines tell them.

Sadly like all major shifts in our history this one will too likely be bloody and painful. I predict a good 20 year plus depression as those at the top despairingly cling to the idea that the old system still functions and refuse to admit they have large masses of people whose labor simply is no longer required. But short of a plague or WWIII causing a mass dying out we have simply have to accept that the old models simply no longer work in a time when even the hardest jobs can often be done safer, faster, and cheaper by the machine.

Re:Timing...

[jhoegl]

You do realize that home schooling is an option and one can get their GED through other methods.
Indoctrination is in the hands of the parents not the teachers. If you are worried about it, get involved with your kids and dont throw out unproven terms to support YOUR ideological indoctrination...

Re:Timing...

[Vancorps]

That's cute, you think every senator has a say in every part of the government. Unless they are on a committee they get very little if any say beyond political posturing in the media.

Re:Timing...

[riverat1]

Reagan who raised the debt ceiling 18 times and had several tax increases? That Reagan?

Re:Timing...

[Grishnakh]

Don't be stupid, Bush didn't write the bills, Congress did. Who controlled Congress in 2006-8? Democrats. Who's to blame? ALL OF THEM: Republicans, Democrats, Bush, and Obama.

Re:Timing...

[Darinbob]

Try not to get sick?

Re:Timing...

[Darinbob]

He said Regan, the chief of staff. Can't trust those guys.

Re:Timing...

[WeatherGod]

Actually, he is. These sort of large-scale projects are funded through authorizations by Congress. He has to work with the budget he is given, and when an authorization bill says that such-and-such will be purchased, he can't go ahead and say no. Specific details are often left up to the Executive branch, but the president can not unilaterally decide to build a hundred datacenters without having the money approved by Congress.

Re:Timing...

[k4b]

"causing them to consume 200 times more power than the typical office space." And a grapefruit tastes 200 times more like a grapefruit than a kiwi does.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

"idk, I'm all for specificity, but that seems a bit nitpicky."

Why? You don't think the origination of an idea, good or bad, deserves credit?

"Either way, they're cutting the data centers now, which is a great move for cutting waste since they're running at 27% utilization."

So spending 2-3 years running up the data centers unnecessarily and now costing cutting is a "great move"?

Man, talk about spin. You don't wan to give credit to the previous administration, the current administration kept the status quo without criticism then and now from you, and now are making a sweeping change that is only positively seen.

Freaking spin on federal datacenters on /. Unbelievable.

No wonder we're screwed as a country.

Re:Timing...

[LordLimecat]

Sad that it means cutting the jobs associated with those data centers, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Sad in the sense that Joe may not get a paycheck next month (and I hope Joe and company all find new jobs); not sad in the "its better to pay people to do nothing" sense. If those jobs were unneeded, its not healthy to continue to pay for them. A thriving economy is one in which value is being created, not merely one in which you collect a paycheck.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

> it made it a requirement to buy health insurance

It added a fee that could get up to $600/year that was offset if you bought insurance. One of the insurance plans could have been Medicare, which would have funded Medicare with a pool of recipients who are actually healthy, but Republicans made sure that could never happen because ZOMG SOWSHULIZZIM!

Re:Timing...

[LordLimecat]

Republicans dont care if Bush started it, in their eyes anything Obama does is bad, even if it is along their beliefs or party lines

Were that a fair accusation to level as broadly as you have-- and its not fair-- I would remark that it would be a kind of tit-for-tat for everything Bush has taken the blame for that isnt his fault.

For example--

• Starting 2 wars without congressional authorization (he had full authorization for both; Obama has started a new war with NO congressional authorization)
• Implementing the full body scanners (these were done under Obama's watch, with an Obama-elected TSA head and DHS head)
• Causing the market to crash (most economic gurus Ive heard plant the blame squarely on housing loan requirements instituted under Clinton)

And so on. To turn around and act like Dems dont do the exact same crap that you accuse "Republicans" (however broadly you mean that) of is just hypocritical. This is why I can barely tolerate watching politics on TV or listening to it on the radio. Its not just Dems or Republicans who pull this kind of blame game crap and claiming that the other side is retarded and politicking and being obstructionists; but the people who do it need to shut up and get out of politics, because this isnt how adults are supposed to have rational discussion.

For someone to come onto slashdot and to blindly point at their political foes and declare THEM to be irational, fallacious monsters is just ridiculous. I would propose that until you are able to see-- and call foul on-- the shenanigans that your OWN side commits, you are in NO position to accuse others of being irrational.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could start with writing a constitution that specifically enumerates powers, then don't include health care as an enumerated power.

Which, of course means you have tell the people who whine about for-profit health insurance to get bent.

Re:Timing...

[NateTech]

And you only get a +2...? I'm not surprised, I guess. But you're right. Government is always controlled by whoever buys the politicians. That's pretty clear from history.

Re:Timing...

[NateTech]

They get a vote.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot them.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Causing the market to crash (most economic gurus Ive heard plant the blame squarely on housing loan requirements instituted under Clinton)

By "most economic gurus" I think you mean "complete morons". Subprime lending by Fannie/Freddie (the organizations whose policies Clinton could modify) was not even close to what was being done by the private sector. If you want to go further back, you could also say that Bush is the reason we even have the TSA, and one of those wars (Iraq) was based on complete fiction. There's also good evidence that Obama is really just a moderate Republican, which helps to really explain why he's continuing so many terrible policies.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama was trying to do the classic Keynesian response to an economy in a death spiral and that is for the government to make up for the loss of consumer spending. Well it failed, all it did was delay the inevitable...

Blah blah blah. If only it was true. He actually didn't even try it, instead offering a program which barely prevented us from forming Bread Lines.

There's nothing structural about the economic decline right now, other than the lack of political will that allowed it to happen. Hell, even the New Deal wasn't enough to really save us from the Depression--it was World War II that actually allowed for close to full employment, and that was "stimulus" that just went to killing people. One could argue if the same amount of cash by percentages was spent by the government on domestic projects and infrastructure from 2007 on, we'd all have jobs right now.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

The wording of this post makes it seem as though the data centers were initiated via policies of the Obama administration. However, the reality is that the data center expansion occurred during the policy of the previous Bush administration with funding requested in 2006, approved in 2007 and implementation initiated in 2008 a full year before the Obama administration took office. The Obama administration approved the continuation of the policy in 2009 and 2010 and are currently altering the data center strategy.

Don't be so naivety (stupid) which ever fits . . . just accept that Obama is a failure, the biggest!!!

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a serious problem with factual reporting in the blog post this thread comes from. the CIO post from which the author took his topic says" Between 1998 and 2010, the Federal government quadrupled the number of data centers we operate." (http://www.cio.gov/pages.cfm/page/Shutting-Down-Duplicative-Data-Centers)
That pencils out to 12 years on my scratch paper, and hardly can be laid at the feet of the present administration.
Also,"The DOD alone will close 113 data centers that total 181,632 square feet, the size of more than three football fields." not one Giant three-football-field sized data center.
I sympathize with a suspicion of Government, but this is terrible reporting of easy to check factual errors. And from a website called Smarter Technology. if they are smarter it must be an ethics problem.
A short visit to the OMB blog shows a remarkable re-organization program aimed at eliminating excess redundant systems. How is that a bad thing?

Re:Timing...

[LordLimecat]

Subprime lending by Fannie/Freddie (the organizations whose policies Clinton could modify) was not even close to what was being done by the private sector.

Im not really clear how "housing bubble caused by bad lending practices" can be argued. If you cant get a loan because youre a terrible risk, you cant purchase the house that you would have defaulted on.

There were things that the private sector did that made it much worse, but the entire problem was because people who never should have been given loans got them, and then predictably could not pay them off-- that was the initial domino which set off the whole sorry set of them. You can say that this exposed terrible practices in the industry, but you certainly cant blame the industry for CAUSING it (and if you are doing so, should look up what "initial cause" means).

Re:Timing...

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Universal Health Insurance is good at preventive care, but bad at dealing when people get sick. (Try getting a specialist in Canada. See if you even get referred to a specialist when you should be.)

Private Health Insurance has an inherent conflict-of-interest problem that it addresses in a way where the transaction costs are incredibly wasteful. (I know someone who spent more than 24 hours on the phone getting an address changed).

Ideally, we need a little of each, with improvements to both.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Things go on below desks that he has no clue or real control over.

That is either one of the most hilarious unintentional typo I have ever seen, or you, sir, are a comedy genius.

Re:Timing...

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Try and figure out how to make healthcare affordable enough that you don't need the government or some other insurance company to pay for it for you?

You don't need to have insurance done the way it's done. As it is, doctors are incentivized to do lousy work by insurance companies. A negotiated flat rate for a certain procedure regardless of whether it is a careful one by a good surgeon that takes three times as long or a sloppy one by a quick surgeon, for example. If you want your patents to get the right care, you have to lie to insurance companies about the patient's medical condition. I'm not doing scan X as a follow-up because it's what you should do after the patient has condition Y, I'm doing it to be sure patient doesn't have (expensive-to-treat) condition Z.

Re:Timing...

[jahudabudy]

but the entire problem was because people who never should have been given loans got them....You can say that this exposed terrible practices in the industry, but you certainly cant blame the industry for CAUSING it

You mean the industry that gave out these loans? The industry that knew the loans were crap and bribed the ratings agencies to rate them AAA anyway, so they could turn around and sell them (to Freddie/Fannie)? The industry that then decided to buy insurance on bad loans (credit default swaps) that was worth way more than the loans? Which of these are NOT "the industry's" fault? What exactly are you saying is Freddie/Fannie's role that caused the housing crisis?

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

idk, I'm all for specificity, but that seems a bit nitpicky.

Let's be honest. What it sounds like is excuse-making for someones christ figure.

Some day, folks are going to wake the hell up and realize that R's and D's are all just politicians... which means they're scumbags. All of them.

Re:Timing...

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

You sir are correct on the problem with the Obama Healthcare Plan. I am a Liberal Democrat and agree completely that we did not do any Healthcare reform, what we did was attempt to change the health care insurance industry. Giving the industry a healthy bonus in the process.

Say what you want about it but the Canadians and Australians have pretty decent universal health care, the horror stories that you hear are anecdotal and for the most part greatly exaggerated. Establish a baseline that everyone gets then allow individuals to purchase private insurance above the baseline.

It makes no sense to tie health care to a job. You do know the reason it is like that in the US goes back to WWII and wage restrictions. Companies couldn't lure valued individuals with salary increases so the figured out they could use health benefits to get around the wage restrictions.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

True that home schooling is an option, but not one that everyone can take advantage of. Single parent, working parents, or people that don't have the education themselves probably aren't going to be able to pull of effective home schooling. I'm all for being as involved with kids as much as possible, but not everyone can do it. In some cases, teachers will be the primary influence on children.

Before you think that I'm not involved in raising my kids, I'll just put out that my wife volunteered regularly to assist the teachers when my kids were in elementary school. I have been involved in coaching youth sports for my kids (and even now that my kids are grown up). Both of us worked with our children to shape their views, but that doesn't mean that teachers (or anyone in an authoritative role) don't have an impact on them too.

Mij

Re:Timing...

[sycodon]

We'll call it a serendipitous typo.

Re:Timing...

[Anonymous Coward]

lordlimecat said:
"Implementing the full body scanners (these were done under Obama's watch, with an Obama-elected TSA head and DHS head)"

Well that is true but again half the story. TSA came up with the idea of body scanners while Bush was in office and got funding for them while *HE* was in office. Yes they were implemented under Obama watch *BUT* he didn't originally authorize them nor were they part of his "plan". The plan started out with Bush's "OK". If Obama had squashed them (I personally don't think he knew about them until they were deployed, thats a guess on my part). ANyway even if OBama would have squashed them two things would have happed.

1. The repugs would have screamed that OBama was soft on terrorism
2. The repugs would have screamed that it was a waste of money and that Obama should not have stopped the deployment.

Both would have been front page news and no matter how Obama had handled it it would have been a huge fiasco. Even though none of it was of his making.

Re:Timing...

[swalve]

Their only party plank for quite some time has been the equivalent anally raping a weak inmate, and then mocking them for being gay.

Re:Timing...

[swalve]

That's exactly it. Places like Wells Fargo and WaMu had atrocious lending standards. Get a homeless drunk to sign some paperwork, and they'd loan them a quarter million. When those loans, shockingly, started to go bad, it poisoned the rest of the industry. Mortgage loans are (or at least were) pretty highly leveraged, because not many people would default, historically. When you have high leverage, it doesn't take much for the whole thing to fold up under itself.

Looking at it from the other side, prices got run up because there was literally NO friction to the homebuying process. Go buy a trailer for $40k, wait six months, sell it for $100k. Buy a condo. Wait six months, sell it for $200k. "wow, this is easy!" So them you go out and buy a $500k house with a negative interest loan, because you *know* it will be worth $600k next week and you can refinance your way out of the mess. "Pop" Now you are stuck with a $10,000 mortgage nut and only $3k of income. If there were any sane lending standards, many of those dubious loans wouldn't have been made, and the vicious circle of the asset bubble wouldn't have occurred.

Stimulus.

[wsxyz]

After all of the equipment is sold for scrap at pennies on the dollar, they'll build the datacenters again. That's called stimulus in action.

Re:Stimulus.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're subsidizing server purchases for local small businesses!

Re:Stimulus.

[cayenne8]

You're not too far off.

Rather than auction off the servers or try to recoup some of their cost...if my past experience happens with these...they'll just be destroyed. Sad but true...I've seen it happen more than once. Rather than just take out the harddrives and destroy those and sell off or give away the hardware, it often is all destroyed as a matter of policy.

Re:Stimulus.

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll get outsourced to companies like SAIC and Northup Grumman and Martin Marietta...
And after the damage some of the other vendors did they'll be more expensive and more management chains than ever before.

Re:Stimulus.

[Avatar8]

I'll concur with Cayenne8 since I've dealt with closing a government data center in the past.

Granted what I was involved with was migrating and upgrading, but I saw hundreds of perfectly usable, 1-3 year old servers stacked in the old data center, hard drives pulled and drilled and the servers sold to a scrap company.

Complete and utter waste. I seriously doubt TFA servers will be treated any differently regardless of age.

Re:Stimulus.

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens these days is it goes to surplus, basically a warehouse. There first other divisions can take it, then other government agencies. If it goes unclaimed they are destroyed since at that point it has been a long time. Now the reason it is done this way is to avoid previous scandals, the worst were where there were rogue depts that bought hardware, then shortly disposed of it, only to be taken home by employees. Similar things happened where companies with connections bought hardware at steep discounts from local government sales. You have to understand that you are dealing with the citizens money and great care has to be taken to not allow fraud to happen, and even to prevent people thinking it might be going on.

Re:Stimulus.

[fafaforza]

A motorcycle analogy: we let the young and inexperienced riders buy bikes too shiny and too powerfull for them. And then they get scared of them in a light crash, we buy said bikes from them at deep discounts and end up with a brand new, albeit scratched, bike for half the price.

Re:Stimulus.

[fafaforza]

Somewhat like burning a $100 bill so that a crook won't get their hands on it.

Re:Stimulus.

[fafaforza]

And that's why many people are against raising taxes. There's so much waste happening in our government from pure incompetence. And that's not even mentioning malicious fraud. Paying more taxes is like giving money to a leader in Africa: you hope that just a fraction of it will end up going where it was meant to go.

Re:Stimulus.

[Anonymous Coward]

First they need to be stored in a warehouse until they're completely out of date and worthless. Then they get auction off for pennies on the dollar.

Re:Stimulus.

[Dunbal]

Not much different from paying farmers to not grow corn, really. Except that corn is usually grown locally in the US and electronics are mostly imported from abroad and assembled in the US (if that).

Re:Stimulus.

[Dunbal]

If a politician has a $100 bill then a crook already has his hands on it.

Re:Stimulus.

[Darinbob]

I suspect a lot of this is that everything is budgeted. If there's no budget for selling off old computers then it wont' get done. It costs money to set up a system to wipe the old systems and sell them off even though it would result in a profit, therefore it won't get done.

Re:Stimulus.

[Engeekneer]

I'm sorry, 1-3 year old servers without disks? While I agree that they most likely can be used, their value is fractions of their price as new. So unless you manage to sell the whole lot at one go to somebody, it's probably cheaper to sell them as scrap.

This is of course wasteful, if you consider that the servers have lifetime left. But it might be the cheapest/most profitable option overall.

Re:Stimulus.

[bleh-of-the-huns]

The hard drives and memory are removed and destroyed, the rest is auctioned off as surplus, sometimes through private companies, sometimes though the GSA itself.

My office at home is full of off lease and surplussed equipment from datacenters (some I purchased from GSA auctions).

Fiscally irresponsible

[bluemasterflows]

...why not rent them out instead?

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[erroneus]

Would you seriously rent a government owned machine? The problems with that idea just overwhelm the imagination.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[swan5566]

I believe you might run into Constitutional problems with the government completing with the free market.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[wsxyz]

I'm sure it falls under regulating interstate commerce.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[Jaysyn]

Everything falls under regulating interstate commerce. Everything.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

Then rent them out below market, and call it spurring upstarts.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[hedwards]

Precisely what constitutional problems would those be? If that were really the case, then the government would be prohibited from operating schools, hospitals, libraries and others things which have a private sector equivalent.

OTOH, it's a moot point seeing as we don't have a free market economy anyways.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[operagost]

Or general welfare... or something.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[swan5566]

Yeah, previous comment was based on misinformation there.

Re:Fiscally irresponsible

[geekoid]

Why not? you would have more rights and methods of recourse then if you rented them from a corporation.

I'm pretty sure by 'overwhelm the imagination' you mean ' I can't think of a problem, but I would hate to let an opportunity to bad mouth the government for no good reason pass on by, then yes.

Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama is wasting taxpayer money? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Wait, wait, let me guess. He's going to try and spin this as cost saving, despite the fact that they're already built, and that by building them and instantly closing them we basically blow several billion dollars for absolutely no benefit.

But it's nice to see Obama going back on his "transparency" pledge in such an opaque manner. Apparently he doesn't, in fact, want to provide government data on line. And he can spin it as "cutting costs" when really it's just cutting us out of the loop.

Hope and change, people, hope and change.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Apparently he doesn't, in fact, want to provide government data on line

Transparency is a luxury we can't afford in these austere times.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[Aryden]

Yepp, his fault that something that was approved, budgeted and begun before his administration was done... (this is my glare face)

He approved the continuation based on being told that these centers were necessary for data retention and they aren't. So they are getting closed. As any good business person would do when faced with budget restrictions.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[cusco]

Oh, I'm sure some people benefited, just not the taxpayers. Reminds me of the end of the Apollo program. Do you know why there is a Saturn V baking in the sun outside the Cape Canaveral visitor center? It, and three others, were bought, paid for, and delivered, along with Lunar Modules, Rovers, and the rest. Even the fuel had been purchased. The only remaining cost was actually launching the stuff and accomplishing the mission objectives, and at that time (before privatization) those were mostly internal NASA costs. No one was going to make any more money off the program, except the NASA employees, so the rest of the program was canceled. I cried when I went to the Cape and heard what had happened from the folks in the museum.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[b0bby]

FTA:

Over the last two years, the number of U.S. data centers has quadrupled, and yet they are running at only about 27 percent utilization, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The maintenance costs of these data centers, including backup power supplies, air conditioning, fire-suppression and special security devices, has been astronomical, causing them to consume 200 times more power than the typical office space. By more fully utilizing the remaining data centers, the White House hopes to maintain current service levels while drastically cutting costs.
So far the Administration has shut down 81 of these data centers already this year, and has a goal of shutting down another 195 during 2011, and 97 more by the end of 2012 for a total of 373. Beyond 2012, its overall goal will be to shut down 800 data centers by the end of 2015, which it claims will save taxpayers over $3 billion annually.

It makes sense to me that if you're running at 27%, some consolidation should take place. It also makes sense that this would save money going forward. I don't even care if it was Bush that ordered them, we should save the money now.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[rickb928]

Next thing we know, you'll be complaining that Obama's got buddies in the business waiting to rent/lease/buy these vacated datacenters for pennies on the dollar, and will recycle the servers for less, making this all a 'green' project. Saving the environment, tax dollars, and all.

Whatever. Well, all except those pathetic little coloc centers Agriculture got stuck with. Good riddance to the closets, really, what can you DO in 1000 sq ft? Stickhandle?

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[GooberToo]

So what's the difference between bush being told they are necessary for data retention and funding vs obama completing construction and continuing funding?

Let me guess...you want someone to irrationally blame and it just so happens you like one and don't like the other. To hell with rational thought!

The fact is, the buck stops there - in that chair. It is impossible to hate on bush and not obama, without being a total hypocritical prick.

But that's the state of politics in this country. One idiot wants to blame another idiot and they care so much about irrational, polarizing hatred, intelligence, rational thought, and solutions go right out the window. But hey, at least people get to irrationally express their outrage - almost always at the wrong person.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[AK Marc]

So what's the difference between bush being told they are necessary for data retention and funding vs obama completing construction and continuing funding?

When the administration was new, they were told these were "necessary." When they learned that was a lie, they stopped funding at the earliest opportunity. Where's the fault in that?

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yepp, his fault that something that was approved, budgeted and begun before his administration was done... (this is my glare face)

Not quite.

Budgeting can't be done that far in advance in the USA. Anything that was built this past year had to have been budgeted no earlier than the year before.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[riverat1]

And if it was President McCain doing this you'd probably be praising him for his fiscal responsibility.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[Aryden]

Correct except that the budgeting and build process was begun in the Bush administration. It was continued due to being told it was a necessity. I have no problems with the process that was taken, I don't find fault with Bush or Obama in regards to these centers. The only fault I would see is if they were used to house data on private citizens. Obama is doing exactly what any good CEO or executive would do. He inherited projects that were under way, did not see a reason that they should stop early on, but when presented with up to date information, made an executive decision and is doing his job.

Also, this concept that closing these data centers is somehow going to make the administration less open to the public is just pure rubbish. This President has been more open and forthcoming with information than any we have had so far. This is not to say that he's perfectly open, but it's the best step in the right direction that we've had and we can hope that it continues in the upcoming years. It's a damn sight better than the "fuck off, I'll tell you what I think you should know" attitude of the last guy.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[Talderas]

Do you know why there is a Saturn V baking in the sun outside the Cape Canaveral visitor center?

I believe they moved that Saturn V into a shelter or constructed one around it. I believe there's also a Saturn V in an enclosure at the Johnson Space Center. However neither of those Saturn Vs had parts which were intended for the same launch. I think both have pieces from 3 different missions that never launched.

They are a prime example of sunk costs. With the exception of maybe the fuel, every other piece you named in constructing a Saturn V is a sunk cost. NASA cannot recuperate those costs. It becomes a question then of whether you go ahead with the minor cost of launching as well as placing the Apollo astronauts at risk or if you cut it and save those incremental costs.

What more was there to accomplish by sending more people to the moon? Haul back some more moon rocks? We had already proven that we could do it 6, nearly 7, times over.

The truth is that we humans allow our common sense to be overruled by romantic notions.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[GooberToo]

Whooosh!

So what was Bush told - that's the point. This is why your post is full of shit - because they are full of illogical bias. Furthermore, I was using this as an example. Constantly I read morons who want to ignorantly point the finger at one politician while ignorantly forgiving their own bias simply because not doing so would require looking in the mirror.

The fact my post was troll moderated is a wonderful example of just how stupid the general voting population is. Pointing out hypocrisy and stupidity in the masses makes people want to hate the messenger rather than admit THEY are the fucking problem.

So ask yourself, do you want to continue to be the problem or actually be a solution? Here's a hint, if you mindlessly blame the candidate you oppose and mindlessly forgive your own bias, you absolutely are the problem. Period.

The real problem is people always assume perfect information. Realistically, it almost never exists. So do you have a smoking gun of what Bush was told? You don't do you. Which basically means, you're doing exactly what I said.

And to be clear, I using this as an example, and notice the stupidity of response - troll moderation and the exact same bias to which spurred the original contention.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[cusco]

The astronauts **WANTED** to be put at risk, that's one of the reasons why they become astronauts!

Do you really believe that if we dropped a dozen guys at six random places in the Western Hemisphere, only one of them a geologist, and gave each team just a few hours to pick up rocks that they'd come back with a comprehensive sampling of all of the geology of North and South America??? I don't know how science is done on your planet, but here we're not nearly that efficient. I suppose Queen Isabella should have called off all the voyages of exploration after Columbus's second one, since they had learned everything possible about the new world.

Call it a 'sunk cost' or call it 'George', I don't care, the money was already spent, the hardware was already delivered, there was nothing at all to be gained by not using it. Would you build a house and then abandon it because you didn't want the additional expense of the movers? Makes about as much sense, but that's what the Congresscritters ordered NASA to do.

Yes, there's one at Johnson, and there was a third at the military base the Shuttle used to land at. Used to. Damn, we can't even put a human into LEO now, something we WERE able to do in 1961. I never believed that the conservatives would have been able to drag us down this far. Took 'em 40 years, though. I suppose I should be proud of that, at least.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[Talderas]

Do you really believe that if we dropped 4 more people at random places on the moon we would suddenly glean everything we could possibly know? The truth is that we don't need to send humans up in space. Robots and probes satisfy our current needs and they're cheaper and easier to get into LEO.

Your house analogy is completely off base. I can still resell that house. There are people who will want it. The sunk cost is the cost of your time you put into building it. Who in the heck was NASA going to sell a Saturn V rocket to? No one had a need to send 130 tons into LEO. Other rockets were capable of delivering payloads into LEO and other orbits and were cheaper to use.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Obama who got Constellation canceled and Bush Jr that got it into place? Conservatives really tried to kill that, didn't they? Additionally, the Space Shuttle and the Apollo program were conceived during Eisenhower's Presidency. It was only Kennedy's Presidency that energized the populace towards Apollo. It also happened to be Nixon that gave the final go ahead with the Shuttle. With the exception of Kennedy it seems like Democrats have been at best ambivalent and at worst destructive towards the manned space program while it was Republicans that have at least pushed it through.

However thanks for proving my point that humans allow romantic notions to overrule common sense.

Re:Obama wastes taxpayer money?

[cusco]

Constellation??? What was worth spending a penny on that piece of crap? It was a slightly scaled-up Apollo Command Module mounted on Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, IOW 40 year-old technology being launched by 35 year-old technology being purchased at the price of bleeding edge tech. It needed to be canceled before it was ever seriously proposed. (The conspiracy theorist in me is of the opinion that they stole the name 'Orion' to make people forget the original Project Orion ever existed.)

OK, instead of 'build a house' say 'install a custom kitchen' and then never step into it because you don't want to spend the additional money for food and drinks. I thought that the intent of the analogy was obvious, I guess not. You do know what 'abandon' means, right?

Eight more people in four more locations with improved equipment and longer stays planned would have doubled the amount of hands-on research that could have been done during Apollo. Half of the subsequent teams were scientists as well, rather than test pilots like 11 of the 12 who did get to go. Did you know that the last Apollo crew traveled further with their Rover than all three Mars rovers combined? Robots are nice and all, but humans don't need to have their next hour's travel planned two days ahead of time. They can divert from the plan to inspect/sample something intriguing or unusual, such as the titanium-rich orange soil. For that matter, the robot can't even recognize when something is unusual except as a discrepancy from the plan which needs to be avoided. Humans can innovate and adapt (astronauts stood on rocks and the rover seats to see further, and repaired a damaged fender with maps and duct tape). Perhaps in 20 years a robot will make a better explorer than a human, but not now, and certainly not in 1974.

You're about to call me a 'space nutter' now, but the real purpose of space exploration is to EXPLORE, and the purpose of having people do the exploration is to learn how to LIVE in space. 'Romantic notions' colonized the Americas during the Ice Age, domesticated wild animals, built Ur, constructed the Library of Alexandria and circumnavigated the globe. I guess you're right, exploration and experimentation is useless.

Typical gov't program

[Whatsmynickname]

This isn't the first time some federal government facility was built and then promptly discarded... Your efficient taxpayer's dollars at work.

Re:Typical gov't program

[cruff]

Yes, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) was an excellent example of this behavior. The James Webb Telescope may be another. Admittedly, in these cases it is due to inaccurate budget and/or schedule estimates.

Re:Typical gov't program

[Sta7ic]

SSC never went active, whereas these data centers went live, were monitored, and deemed to be excess infrastructure that didn't help the deficit. Something similar happened around here, with the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Could've been pumping out medical isotopes, but noooo, we needed to shut that thing down.

Re:Typical gov't program

[geekoid]

The republicans hunted up everything Obama approved and worked to get is shut down for the sole reason that it was funded by Obama. Whether or not it was a good way to spend money didn't matter.

Rename them as private clouds...

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy fix... just rename them as Federally compliant private clouds.

why be a landload when you want to sell?

[Joe_Dragon]

as being landload they will have to pay for upkeep. Any ways others can use the data centers from there own use.

What they didn't tell you

[shoehornjob]

is that they are closing the data centers because the chinese government stole all the data. Now that the chinese government is the defacto owner of our data Obama can say that he saved the american taxpayer millions of dollars.

To the Cloud!

[biodata]

Data centres are so old hat these days.

Re:To the Cloud!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right the new thing is the cloud.... But clouds are a bunch of servers called data centers with a new name...

Re:To the Cloud!

[jellomizer]

Too bad what we call Cloud computing isn't what it use to be. Today is is a data center. It was supposed to be a distributed computing platform where PCs who joined the cloud will use their unused CPUs to create a massive super computer.

Re:To the Cloud!

[biodata]

For the avoidance of doubt, my comment was intended to be ironic

totally in line with their stated strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama admin now has a "cloud first" policy. It stands to reason that getting rid of in-house metal is a consequence of this.

http://www.cio.gov/documents/Federal-Cloud-Computing-Strategy.pdf

Finally ...

[Anomalyst]

Finally, something constructive to keep him busy

List of where they are?

[bemenaker]

Where is the list of these datacenters? One is in my town and I want to know more about it.

Re:List of where they are?

[dohcvtec]

Planning a little dumpster diving?

Outsourcing spying to Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Obama is closing Gov data-centers; his good buddies at Google are doing the spying now....

Outer Join

[Anonymous Coward]

They Finally figured it out

gn4a

[Anonymous Coward]

new faces and many driven out by the end, we need you those obligGations.

sold

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be sold at a heavily discounted price to whichever IT shop has given the most money to the Obama administration.

The Slashdot test: Failed

[scumdamn]

Thanks Slashdot for posting an article that tells half the story so we can easily tell who's smart enough to look into the full story (Bush admin bought all those servers that we didn't need and Obama is saving us money by shutting them down).

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[Anonymous Coward]

He has to save money from some place. he is spending so much else where on nothing.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[Chris Mattern]

Actually, the article specifically says that servers quadrupled in the past two years under a policy approved by Obama (although it was started by Bush). So it was Obama who bought those servers. But, what the heck, you don't need to think when you know it's all Bush's fault!

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[scumdamn]

Who funded the program?

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[BetaDays]

Obama saving us money? Your kidding right? I have faith he is just getting rid of them so he can rent them off of someone else at a higher price. Or maybe he got in with Amazon to scale up as need with cloud services kind of like what United Kingdom is up to http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/07/21/uk-government-now-using-huddles-platform-for-top-secret-documents/. Or the fact that Hillary Clinton is shipping US datacenter jobs off to Inda so we don't need a lot of computing power over here. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/india/india-and-us-to-work-together-on-datagov-and-against-cyber-crime/633 So we will never know.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[Svartalf]

Obama... It was started with Bush, but a President change doesn't place the current funding blame with the previous president like Obama and his supporters would like you to believe.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[Svartalf]

Heh... You took my acerbic remark away from me there.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure if Obama had canceled the initiative instead you'd complain about his lack of vision for government IT growth, called him a Luddite, etc. Really, you're going to bash they guy, on slashdot, for deploying data centers? (Regardless of who initiated the rollout) There really isn't any reality you won't twist to suit your world view. Sorry.

Anyhoo, Fast forward to today
Now we've got a horde of howling Tea Party stooges furiously screaming their party line "Cut cut cut! Kill the pig! Make him bleed!" With the all the religious fervor of something resembles a cross between a convulse-for-christ revival and a Hitler youth rally.

To appease this dangerous morons cutting any cost is on the table. It doesn't matter if it's bad choice in the long run. A bunch of of underutilized servers seems like an easy target, so add them to the list.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[rubycodez]

no, obama continued the program and wasted money for years, and now while 2012 election is tooling up he and his admin gets a brain fart to shut them down. dumb-asses just like bush/cheney.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[hedwards]

Not really. If you're going to blame anybody for wasting money, it really ought to be the GOP. They're the ones that insisted that giving money to the rich in the form of tax cuts would result in increased tax receipts. Not to mention the fact that they were the ones that engaged in 2 off the books wars and numerous other accounting fixes to make it appear that they weren't overspending by as much as they were.

As far as cuts go, if the rich would pay their fair share, even if it's just proportional to the amount of wealth they control, the cuts wouldn't need to be as deep to services.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[geekoid]

It's not Obama, it's the budget cuts the were forced on us.

They are being shit down because of the current republicans. They shouldn't be, and the government should be doing more of this with their data.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[geekoid]

Bush got us into Iraq
Bush's Tax cut to the wealthy.

This are the 2 reasons we have suck a large deficit. Add to the the pubs won't live up to there end of the bargain and let the tax cuts expire as they where planned to do.

THIS is Bush/Cheney and the republicans fault, and it's a fucking quagmire.

Just because bush could loose all the fiscal gain Clinton got us in 2 years, doesn't mean the results can be fixed in 2 years. As the experts have been saying, the results from the Bush administration will be felt for a decade.

And re[publican blames democratic presidents for years and years after they have left. They even like to blame them when the economy is in great shape. The ignore that the debt went up over 20% during the Bush run.
The federal spending has decrease under Obama, where as it increased every year Under Bush.

By all measures things are better now then the where at the end of the Bush era.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[geekoid]

federal spending increased -2.7% under Obama. So it's actually gone down, but lets not let facts interfere with your opinion.

"So we will never know."
unless , you know, bother to look into it.

I don't know what is worse, that you took this:
" Hillary Clinton is shipping US data center " from that article, or that you espouse an opinion without the larger context of her body of work.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[rubycodez]

I don't consider any budget cuts to be forced upon me, the federal government is a dangerous evil monster that needs massive pruning. I hope the "supercongress" gets deadlocked so the triggers cut in, and then in 2012 we elect people who cut some more.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[BetaDays]

Can you show me a link that says the federal spending as increased a negative 2.7% under Obama, please. All I can find is how he has increased it by 21.78%, thanks. http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/12/happy-tax-freedom-day to quote the part "the three years of the Obama Administration have been three record-setting years of federal government regulation and spending -- a 21.78 percent increase relative to the average size of the federal government between 1977 and 2008." And that doesn't even include the Obamacare that will increase spending. Thanks a head of time.

Re:The Slashdot test: Failed

[DQKennard]

Other articles, I think covered here on Slashdot, have discussed a major initiative over the last few years to *identify* existing sites that have been acting as datacenters. Much of the server capacity already existed, but wasn't documented at even the agency level, let alone at the overall Federal level. Obama's Administration didn't quadruple servers; it (leveraging off efforts started under Bush) has made strides toward a coherent datacenter/server policy. Having made progress in identifying resources, they have started identifying redundancies and unnecessary facilities. Certainly, there have been continued purchases. IT is like that. Needs increase and equipment obsolesces.

DRMO

[Quila]

If they aren't repurposed at another agency, they will be sold in lots at DRMO sales. So will the racks. Servers used on secure networks may be sold, but any storage will no longer be in them.

Re:DRMO

[will_die]

Since none of the them DoD they will not be sold through DRMO, most other agencies go through the GSA

Re:DRMO

[bleh-of-the-huns]

As someone else noted, the servers will be sold through GSA, or in some cases private companies who sell off excess. One thing to note is that all drives and memory get removed, sometimes they use those elsewhere, sometimes they shred them (yes.. I said shred.. watching a monster shredder in action destroying hard drives is absolutely awesome.. no I do not work on cleared systems, just regular federal civilian agency work). They are almost never included with the servers anymore unless someone forgot to remove the drives and ram.

Cloud First

[recoiledsnake]

This is probably related to the "Cloud First" strategy adopted by the outgoing CIO Vivek Kundra. http://fcw.com/articles/2011/02/28/buzz-cloud-computing-and-budget.aspx

Re:Cloud First

[kenh]

The outgoing CIO Vivek Kundra assumed his position on March, 5th, 2009 under this administration, not Bush'43.

No government data centers are needed anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

After all the government does not need to gather info and watch our online activities anymore. Beings that they just passed the law that the ISP's need to retain this information now and its only a sepia away.

Was Nancy Pelosi in charge....?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm picturing Nancy Pelosi in charge of this project. "We'll just have to build the data centers to find out what we can do with them."

Pork

[markdowling]

Cue yelling from Congresspeople whose datacentres are getting chopped.

"Sack someone else! Cut somewhere else!"

Re:Pork

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, these datacentres are just transferring over to the black budget. How else do you think they are going to keep track of everyone?

Amazon

[michelcultivo]

Obama, rent some servers from Amazon. They only goes out about 1 day on the year. Bye

The alternative

[Quila]

Leave them online and keep sinking money into their operations although they are not needed.

He's doing a good thing here. We have plenty of other datacenters throughout the world.

Converting them into Bitcoin miners

[NitroWolf]

There's a secret government project to convert all those servers into Bitcoin Mining Rigs.

You didn't really think consumers were responsible for the shortage of high end AMD graphics cards, did you?

Re:Converting them into Bitcoin miners

[Pete Venkman]

You never know, bitcoins might end up worth more than dollars in the next few years.

Re:Converting them into Bitcoin miners

[warGod3]

WRONG!

They are going to use the 'prisoners' in Gitmo to do 'harvesting' in WoW and other MMOs...

Selling the DC

[Bert64]

They will most likely sell the DC itself for a fraction of what it cost the taxpayers to build... Coincidentally, the company that gets the bargain new DC will probably have a few politicians on the board.

Deactivated systems will not be sold in the US

[ebunga]

Due to national security, servers will be divided into those that hosted classified materials, and those that did not. Those that contained classified materials will be labeled as Securely Ensure Nonrecoverable Destruction To Ostensibly Completely Hinder Internationally Notorious Agents, but that's a bit long, so really they will be labeled with the acronym SENDTOCHINA. They will be melted down locally and then sold for scrap. Those that do not contain classified materials will be sold to China to help ease their demand for computing resources that they already build. These will be labeled Mutually Economic Lateral Trade. That too is a bit long, so the systems that should be sold to China will be labeled MELT.

Re:Deactivated systems will not be sold in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice!

Re:Deactivated systems will not be sold in the US

[rwa2]

I lol'd :-P

Re:Deactivated systems will not be sold in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice work.

"from the ultra-liberal National Public Radio"

[Anonymous Coward]

from the credits at the end of the article...

  "from the ultra-liberal National Public Radio"

  Really ??

no wonder there is a 12 trillion + debt

[FudRucker]

they spend billions of dollars with such triviality it makes me dizzy

Utilization

[Anonymous Coward]

from the TFA:
"Over the last two years, the number of U.S. data centers has quadrupled, and yet they are running at only about 27 percent utilization"

So assumign 100% utilization 2 years ago, we are not at 108% of origrinal capacity. So datacenter utilization must be growing at 4% a year, it would have been a little over 20 years before the capacity was filled. Since it can take 5 years for the govenment to even to fund a new project like this (let alone build it, fill it, and man it), I'd say shooting a little high wasn't a bad move.

113 are DoD

[Quila]

But you're right, the rest will go GSA.

datacenter fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

The agencies are not always being truthful in this: for example, five "datacenters" being closed by EPA in its NC offices are actually network-cabinets, for which the "computer hardware" is a router being moved out onto the floor of the real datacenter

Re:datacenter fraud

[maxwell demon]

Ah, so I also have a data center. I've got a router, and I even have a hard disk with data on it!

Why shutdown the newest?

[whoever57]

Surely the fiscally responsible approach is to shut down the oldest datacenters first. These will be least efficient and hence the savings will be greatest from shutting these down. The equipment in the newest ones will be the most valuable, but when selling it off, they will only get pennies on the dollar (and things like hard drives will be destroyed, not sold) so the increased revenue from selling the newer equipment will be minimal.

Only reason for selling off the newest equipment: "connected" companies and people will be able to make more money off the surplus equipment.

Re:Why shutdown the newest?

[AK Marc]

Often the oldest will have the most complex services running. Shutting the new ones is much easier, and likely cheaper, than moving old services to the new center and shutting down the old one.

Re:Why shutdown the newest?

[geekoid]

"Surely the fiscally responsible approach is to shut down the oldest datacenters first."

you've never done this on legacy large scale enterprise systems, have you?

What make economic sense is to keep doing it and with time get rid of the older systems.

Re:Why shutdown the newest?

[omnichad]

With the waste in government spending, I would expect that they already closed all the old ones to build new ones. They just built way too many new ones.

Government Mining for Gold....

[Anonymous Coward]

They are trying to raise the value of the dollar.
If they melt down all of those processor chips to strip the microscopic amount of gold off of them, they can collect the gold and use it to back our U.S. currency.
Genius!
Or something.

charge me twice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait for the fire sale, eh? You enjoy paying for things twice apparently...

VMware

[nurb432]

They virtualized it all onto a machine that the NSA has in a storage closet.

no fire sale

[roc97007]

> Will the government hold a server fire sale? Count me in!"

I would guess not. Rather than dilute the server market, negatively affect server manufacturers' profit margins and chance a bad news event, (and incidentally have to admit to bad planning) they'll crush the servers.

Re:no fire sale

[couchslug]

They actually do sell vast amounts of surplus via the Govliquidation site, and people bid that shit higher than Ebay in many cases.

Re:no fire sale

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Or they could let a different government agency acquire them and save some money. I know I need some more for where I work, and I'm sure there are other agencies in the same boat.

Re:no fire sale

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the BRAC moves going on, fire sale might not be too far off. A lot of gear will be going to official government auctions.

http://www.dispositionservices.dla.mil/

http://www.govliquidation.com

Re:no fire sale

[roc97007]

When I used to do this, the problem was that doing a cost transfer to another agency was labor intensive for very little benefit to your own agency, since you could only transfer the depreciated value and you had to subtract shipping and handling and local DL to manage it. Total bottom line: It may actually cost you money out of your own agency's budget to transfer the equipment to another agency. Often did, in my experience.

And, I'm sorry to tell you this, but individual government agencies are not graded on how much money a different agency saves. Transferring computer gear to another government agency who needs it doesn't do anything for my agency, and may even coast me money. I know, this is messed up, but it is what it is.

There are ways around it -- you'll see desperate volunteers sneaking equipment to another agency in their own transportation, for instance. But it's risky.

Government agencies are not set up to share nice. This is the root cause of a lot of the waste that outsiders see.

Timing: Consolidation Began Two Years Ago

[1sockchuck]

The federal data center consolidation effort began early in the Obama administration. After nearly a year of planning, the effort kicked off in March 2010. Many of these older data centers predate the Bush administration. Plenty of blame to go around, but Obama and his IT team have been the first to attempt to tackle a consolidation effort.

Oh come on

[geekoid]

Obama move policy to a smarter government.
republicans cut funding
Obama's fault.

The republicans are giong after ANYHTING Obama does. Why isn't everyoen getting pissed at that? This isn't a sie of the isle complaint. Even when Republican create a bill, and then when Obama agrees and says will sign sign it, the republicans who created the bill back out. WTF?

There is a difference between having a debate and simple going against something because the president is for it.

They would rather the country burned to the ground, the Obama getting elected again.
I've been paying attention to politics since Reagan, and never has it been like this.

Add to that a bunch of people who refuse to accept the established fact that austerity during a recession never works. Look at history.

It's stupid.

Re:Oh come on

[gottspeed]

"You want to see some really fucked up people? You should come to the debtors support group!" Look at your birth certificate and then look up the meaning of certificate, and take about five minutes thinking about why government does whatever it wants. I'll save you some time. Its because we deserve the treatment. Our parents literally (commercially anyway) give us away, flesh and blood to corporate government. Their house, their rules. End of story.

Re:Oh come on

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Honestly I wounder how Obama gets out of bed in the morning. It doesn't matter what he does, he is attacked for it. In his shoes I would jump in Airforce 1, make a quick withdrawal at Fort Knox, and take off for a nice out of the way island.
Maybe send off a quick press release off wishing the American people good luck, because they need all the luck they can get.

Of course I know this could never happen, but it makes an image that makes me smile.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the most stunning lack of historical understanding I've seen in a while. What you are suggesting is that during a recession and a huge budget deficit in all layers of Government, you'd like to spend more money? You really think that history proves that this works? You should retake history because the reality is that every nation that ever has been in the financial situation the US is in has *collapsed*. Your big spender policies are the reason thereof. Austerity won't "work"... GOVERNMENT austerity.. however, will. In fact, it's the *only* recourse. For you see, when you start spending so much of what you don't have and promising trillions more to future generations that you don't expect to get, people elsewhere in the world start to see you as a bad investment. When that happens you get things like investors putting their money elsewhere and credit demotions. This, of course, perpetuates a nice downward spiral of doom. The Republicans don't want your stupid tax hikes because 1) Your tax hike robs the private sector (people who willingly trade services and goods and thusly increase general wealth) then gives that wealth to the public sector (people who haven't really produced something that is of equal value to the sum that they take as they have no direct relationship with the customer.) This is basic economics. If you take this wealth out of the private sector you lower the value of the economy generally and give it to people who piss it away which destroys wealth. 2) Your parties continued reluctance to address entitlements surely indicates that it's filled with a) ignorant fucks like you. b) people who actually want to destroy the country. You know that 209 trillion+ the US government has promised really isn't getting any smaller. YOU'RE part of what will burn the country to the ground. We'll just pick up the pieces. - Republican

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Spell Check. Grammar Check. Thank You Come Again.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Less 30 seconds of googling renders your entire screed completely, factually, wrong. You're a symptom of people that feed you misinformation to continue to exploit you. Economic battered wife syndrome.

Look up the Tom tomorrow comic "Stupid or Lying?" - This encapsulates your entire ethos in to a joke. In less than 30 seconds.

Re:Oh come on

[riverat1]

Mitch McConnell said last January that the most important thing for Republicans was to make sure that Barak Obama was a one term President! Not ways to get more jobs for the American people, not anything about getting us out of the recession but making Obama a one term President. That tells me all I need to know about Republicans (and no, I'm not particularly thrilled by the Democratic Party either.)

Re:Oh come on

[Taty'sEyes]

Obama move policy to a smarter government. republicans cut funding Obama's fault.

The republicans are giong after ANYHTING Obama does. Why isn't everyoen getting pissed at that? This isn't a sie of the isle complaint. Even when Republican create a bill, and then when Obama agrees and says will sign sign it, the republicans who created the bill back out. WTF?

There is a difference between having a debate and simple going against something because the president is for it.

They would rather the country burned to the ground, the Obama getting elected again. I've been paying attention to politics since Reagan, and never has it been like this.

Add to that a bunch of people who refuse to accept the established fact that austerity during a recession never works. Look at history.

It's stupid.

Me thinks you missed one or five citations in there... ~

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

"The republicans are giong after ANYHTING Obama does. Why isn't everyoen getting pissed at that?"

Because they learned it from the Dems. You're mad because I'm pissing on your lawn after you dumped dog shit on my lawn, kicked my cat, and ran your car through my porch?

Because "everyoen" aside from you knew that's exactly what the Dems did to Bush. The Dems know it and really can't complain. And the Reps are giving due payback in their eyes. You can't complain about the tactic when the strategy worked for you (blame Bush, associate McCain with Bush) and people turn around and do the same back--or are you really saying the Reps are doing it more effectively than the Dems could pull it off? (FLCL hand over mouth laugh) _That_ would be embarrassing.

You weren't pissed at the Dems when the roadblocked financial reform year after year after the Reps realized their mistake. We're suffering what is essentially a double dip long recession with actual unemployment (not the crap government stats) of over 30%. We find Obama unworkable. You elected someone we don't like. We have NO REASON to work with him since he takes credit for Bush's good ideas, lies through his teeth fulfilling very few of his campaign promises, and just plain sucks as a politician with his professor style.

And remember the ridicule you guys did after McCain lost. Politics has memory. Pelosi. Biden. Hell, Harry Reid comes off as freaking practical compared to that trio. They're not here to agree with you. That's your job to persuade or work with them. Or to fix things to which your administration will take credit for. We learned that with Bush I with Clinton taking credit for the financial decisions he made which led to years of economic progress which the Dems, TO THIS DAY, still cite as their accomplishment.

Sucks being marginalized. Now you know how we/they felt.

Re:Oh come on

[dbIII]

What you are suggesting is that during a recession and a huge budget deficit in all layers of Government, you'd like to spend more money?

That's actually how the USA crawled out of the depression in the 1930s. If you've got another way that would acutally work everyone is interested in hearing it.
The current political tactic is to drive everything as close to the brink as possible, hope that will bring down the government and then quietly implement the same things while pretending they are different.
It's a very dangerous and destructive game and the USA will be forever changed by it. Go read some Dickens if you want an idea of the social structure of the USA as reshaped by the extreme end of the Republican party. Nixon is starting to look like a very moderate Democrat these days as the Republicans move more towards authoritarian crazyness and the Democrats move in to the space where the Republicans used to be. I'm niether but really hate watching the USA being destroyed from within becuase I like the place even though I don't live there.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL
You missed even offering a counter-argument.
Google something, like "austerity during a recession."

Or perhaps you'd like to investigate how "Obamacare" is actually almost identical to Bob Dole's plan from 1994, a Republican plan, who the Republicans proceeded to tell their base was an attack on Medicare to stoke resentment against it, then hypocritically tried cutting Medicare under the manufactured crisis of the debt ceiling, and of course after that matter was settled, attacked Democrats for allowing the cuts on various GOP campaign sites across the country.

Slashdot consists of primarily thinking people and many of you are not doing what you are good at! It's not my or anyone else's job to educate you about a phenomena that has been building for 30 years.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS stupid. And both sides play the same game. It's sickening.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama move policy to a smarter government.
republicans cut funding
Obama's fault.

The republicans are giong after ANYHTING Obama does. Why isn't everyoen getting pissed at that? This isn't a sie of the isle complaint. Even when Republican create a bill, and then when Obama agrees and says will sign sign it, the republicans who created the bill back out. WTF?

There is a difference between having a debate and simple going against something because the president is for it.

They would rather the country burned to the ground, the Obama getting elected again.
I've been paying attention to politics since Reagan, and never has it been like this.

Add to that a bunch of people who refuse to accept the established fact that austerity during a recession never works. Look at history.

It's stupid.

Why doesn't OBAMA do anything? He is supposedly the president and shit. Some people think that matters, I don't know.

The reason people don't get all up in arms about the Republicans bullying obama is that obama is supposed to be the 'leader of the free world' and instead acts like a wounded hippy screaming 'why can't we all get along? why can't we just be friends? I want to help everyone whee!!' and generally being an epic wuss.

And of course every time he takes a 'stand' for something, he backs down. See the debt ceiling bill.

Oh, and JOBS/economy were priority #1 when he took office. How much has he really done about that? Not much. A crappy stimulus that mainly helped bankers and a crappy health bill that didn't REALLY change the status quo (lol obama and change lol). Stuff that actually helped the people that believed in him: jack and shit.

Nobody is gonna cry when a spinless coward of a 'leader' gets repeatedly punched in the face politically DUE TO HIS OWN COWARDICE. I voted Obama, had some hope of change.... and the epic fail is epic. Guantanimo? Still there. Stupid war? Yep. Horrible economic policies that rape the middle class? Still there, but now with more ass-reaming for your pleasure.

At least the republicans stand for something, even if that something tends to be religious lunacy and big business and planet-rape. You can trust those guys to be dicks. The key is to be lucky enough (the wealthy) to need a good set of dicks to go around fucking everyone else with.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude,

Name one freaking thing that Osama has done that was correct?
As far as I am concerning, he should reset all the spending and staff levels to pre 2008 and start over.
And yes, if the country burned to the ground, at least everyone would know it could not get worse and get back to work.
With Osama, everyone is treading water waiting to get screwed financially.
THAT is not a good investment scene.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the Republicans are going after anything Mr. Obama does because this presidency has concentrated on the wrong things every time it has done anything. When the economy continued to tank, it was healthcare. When the time came to draw down Iraq, there was an Afghanistan surge, then expansion of US military activities in Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya (all sovereign nations with US invasions of land and air space. Pakistan is a slightly unusual case, since they get 100,000,000,000 dollars of US money to go into the swiss accounts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H of aid per year and if that doesn't let another nation invade your space what the heck will?

Now, that the industrial heartland of the US is destroyed, primarily with policies of the Clinton administration (NAFTA which began the bleeding of manufacturing jobs out of the USA just like Ross Perot said it would) he's touring - by bus - these parts of the country. Well, since his obvious disdain for working class people - he looks prissier than Queen Elizabeth II when it comes to most things - is pretty rampant now he's trying to figure out how to connect with the non-latte-drinking-non-trust-fund-owning-non-liberal-enclave-dweller. Right.

Don't think I think the Republicans are any better - they suck almost as bad.

Can you blame them India is cheaper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Outsource outsource outsource.

Very Simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't need that much processing power anymore.

Almost

[Wrexs0ul]

While cloud computing follows the air acronym trend, I think what you're really referring to is SkyNet

Just think: in 50 years you'll be thanking Obama for shutting down datacentres that would have one day caused nuclear war

-Matt

Yes, That's Exactly What He's Saying...

[cmholm]

This isn't nitpicky at all. When a new Administration takes office, there is a lot of inertia from previous Administrations. There are costs associated with winding down data centers, you can't just mail pink slips and lock the place up. As to why the Obama Administration "waited" until now, review the actions of the 112th Congress.

There's a simpler explanation

[Bangback]

The big reason that data centers "quadrupled" was better documentation, not some massive influx of spending. The government extensively audited data centers in recent years and found numerous ones. When I was in the government, there were no "data centers" on our campus, but there were at least 10 "server rooms" or "labs" that shared a lot of characteristics. In the past few years, people got really worked up about counting data centers, hence a lot of marginal areas were sucked in. Hint: it made the reduction targets a lot easier if you include a bunch of closets and stuff you wanted to get rid of anyway.

This article takes a handful of random facts and discovers a conspiracy instead of actually asking someone who knows something about government IT.

Re:There's a simpler explanation

[Z00L00K]

That's probably the most informative and insightful text for a long time on /. - and servers are set up when needed and are assumed to either be moved later or set up for a few locals in the beginning because the central servers aren't really supporting the local people. Over time they become permanent.

contracts

[Anonymous Coward]

obviously if you look at the timing, contracts for build and expansion don't just appear over night. The contracts for some company's to do the work were negotiated far far in advance. Would you have had them just cancel the contracts? If you would have them cancel the contracts, should they just not pay the contracts? or pay the contracts and have no work done?

Obama doesn't run the Country

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure why people are always using the President's name to label an era of law making. The President is a piece of the Administration. He is not the "Leader" of the free world. Our Government was specifically designed to make it hard for one man to run the country. That is why I am always of the opinion that no matter who you elect to the office of the President, you have to consider the people in the other two branches and their role in the law making process. I am a Republican and I don't like Obama, but not because he is a good or a bad President. I don't like Obama because his goals are not in line with the vision I have for my Country and my Children's Country. I don't want my healthcare to be free. I would like it if the healthcare industry did not have to mark everything up, but without some significant changes to the way that Insurance is implemented there will be no reduction in cost. I don't think the Government can implement a program which reduces cost. They cannot even get together and make cuts to their own budget! I don't know about the rest of you, but I cannot just call my creditors and tell them that they are going to be on the hook for another 10% credit to me because I decided I just couldn't live without that new car. I have to make decisions about how I spend my money that affect everyone with which I am involved. Sometimes Tommy doesn't get a Red Ryder for Christmas, sorry you cannot just create wealth. Besides can anyone name one example of a program that wasn't Military Development where the Government succeeded? Oh and about the speed at which a Company can make decisions. Take a look at Apple, I am no fan of Steve Jobs either, but he was able to build and spin up a huge data center in the US in less than 5 years. I don't doubt he had the idea that it was going to be there long before, but he didn't make it happen until the funding was there. Unlike the government corporations usually have to secure real dollars by some means before they spend them, that is why those data centers are closing.

This isn't a political issue. Its a technology one

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Everyone is going the political route here... The reality of the situation, is that it is a technological and money issue. When they data centers were first built, virtualization and cloud computing was in its infancy. Many of the datacenters are owned by individual agencies, and even some sub agencies within each gov component maintained their own datacenters.

However, virtualization and cloud computing have come a long way since those days, and it is now feasible, and far more efficient to use those technologies, there by allowing the various government entities to consolidate many of the datacenters. Currently, there are a number of federal agencies that are running what is essentially hosting and datacenter services for other government agencies. This reduces spending, costs of running a datacenter over time far exceed the cost to build and staff them.

But this is slashdot.. everyone takes an opportunity to take shots at the gov, no matter which side is in power.

Outsourced...

[Anonymous Coward]

In a word they convey with the outsource contract.
Inside of a year they will be transported to a secret location
in South American or Asia for research into the mining
of P's and Q's from /., Facebook, and Google+

Re:This isn't a political issue. Its a technology

[vandamme]

OK, we can stop posting now. You said it all. Oh, wait, you forgot to point out the article is a pile of misleading crap.