Feds Now Plans To Close 1,200 Data Centers

1sockchuck writes "The U.S. government now expects to shutter at least 1,200 data centers by the end of 2015 in its data center consolidation project. That's about 40 percent of the IT facilities identified in the latest update from federal CIO Steven VanRoekel. The number of government data centers has grown steadily — jumping from 1,100 to 2,094 and now to 3,133 — as the Obama administration has identified more facilities than expected, and expanded the initiative to target telecom closets. The CIO's office says it is on track to close 525 facilities by the end of this year, and has published a list of data centers targeted for closure."

Comments

Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Under a Republican administration government grows exponentially and it takes a Democratic president to get things back under control.

Re:Figures

[TWX]

Welcome to topsy-turvy land. We've actually been here for awhile, with "fiscal conservative" presidents and legislatures growing the national debt and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.

I support consolidating telecom facilities. Having facilities physically compromised is a bigger danger when there are more facilities, and having more facilities and presumably more equipment means more places one's information ends up, possibly leading to a greater chance that one's data won't remain secure to electronic penetration either.

Many years ago, Tennessee forced all of its state agencies on to one computer system for the bulk of State business. The agencies were very upset by this, but in the end it did save money and help keep records better because now agency X and agency Y were handling the same record, instead of having separate, different records that were never checked against each other. I'm sure there were problems, especially turf wars where agencies would fight over who "owned" the data and who could change things, but I'd bet it still worked better than having thirty individual agencies all with their own equipment that doesn't synchronize...

Re:Figures

[mr1911]

So, what is the national debt again? What was it last year, and the year before?

The government has grown wildly under all parties. Yeah, I know it is hard to troll when keeping reality in focus.

Re:Figures

[Kenja]

Sure there is. Small government Republicans just get the next administration to pay for things. Much like what's been going on for the past few years. If we ever get a Republican that is actually for small government and fiscal responsibility without being a total nut job they'll have my vote. Till then, I feel the Democrats have been doing the least damage.

Re:Figures

[bussdriver]

Obama put the wars into the budget for the 1st time; that made it appear spending went up more than it actually did!
The revenue went down because of the depression that started under Bush and continues today; that means less money coming in while spending continues and in most cases can not and should not instantly reflect revenue. Then you have tax cut extensions which also lowered revenue.
Plus do not forget inflation undermining the dollar's value; a number which is no longer reported because it got so bad (again under Bush, but Obama would have probably done it too.) While this makes the debt amount seem lower in value it actually does more harm than good.
The economy stimulus was way too weak and way too foolish (republican tax cuts) and that cost us a huge amount only to soften the downward spiral and couldn't dig us out-- you have to take a big step backwards so then you can build up enough momentum to escape...

Re:Figures

[__aamnbm3774]

Clinton also had the most ridiculous economy in the last hundred years.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve 'some' credit for not spending it all, but the surplus was more related to how fast the economy was growing than a cut-back in government spending.

Re:Figures

[ackthpt]

Welcome to topsy-turvy land. We've actually been here for awhile, with "fiscal conservative" presidents and legislatures growing the national debt and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.

I support consolidating telecom facilities. Having facilities physically compromised is a bigger danger when there are more facilities, and having more facilities and presumably more equipment means more places one's information ends up, possibly leading to a greater chance that one's data won't remain secure to electronic penetration either.

Many years ago, Tennessee forced all of its state agencies on to one computer system for the bulk of State business. The agencies were very upset by this, but in the end it did save money and help keep records better because now agency X and agency Y were handling the same record, instead of having separate, different records that were never checked against each other. I'm sure there were problems, especially turf wars where agencies would fight over who "owned" the data and who could change things, but I'd bet it still worked better than having thirty individual agencies all with their own equipment that doesn't synchronize...

I've been witnessing the consolidation, or at least attempt at, in California. Sometimes they run out of money for the consolidation effort and it is shelved for short term budget reasons against the wisdom of getting it done now to save much more down the road. Turf wars, well, the try to conceal their turf, 'if we don't look after it it'll be a mess' which needs to be beaten back for the greater good. A little pain now for gain later. Government can't keep growing.

I wouldn't utter a blanket curse at 'Conservatives' growing government - I've lived long enough to see each side of the aisle has its pet projects and is fully capable of spending like "drunken other-side-of-the-aislers" Reagan and GWBush both grew the size of the federal government by significant amounts, without finding a source for the funding, while Clinton (social liberal/fiscal conservative) actully slashed over 100,000 (I think it may have been as high as 300,000 from federal payroll - through consolidation and weeding out things which had lived beyond their mandate.)

Good to see some of this attention coming back. This is how you cut spending, not by some trumpeted bill in the House or turning the budget screws, but by ferreting out the redundancy or unneeded and removing it.

Re:Figures

[wygit]

So if there something wrong under a Democrat administration, it's the President's fault, but if there's something under a Republican administration, it's Congress's fault.

OK, I get it.

Re:Figures

[Lehk228]

not under Bill Clinton

end presidential term limits

Re:Figures

[hondo77]

Really?

But perhaps we are being unfair to former President Clinton. After all, in inflation-adjusted terms, Clinton had overseen a total spending increase of only 3.5 percent at the same point in his administration. More importantly, after his first three years in office, non-defense discretionary spending actually went down by 0.7 percent.

Re:Figures

[Gideon Wells]

I used to say the same thing, but I plan on looking at it more closely in the coming months. I want to see how much of Obama's spending is investment and how much is "waste". The US's infrastructure is falling apart. Reducing to a household analogy, there is a difference between house debt and bar debt.

However, having to switch to walking/bicycling to your job because you refused to get your car repaired to save money hampers income prospects no matter which debt you are paying off.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

It appears to me that Republicans engage in hypocrisy more than Democrats. I remember a common refrain "Why do you hate Bush so much?" whenever there was legitimate criticism of his policies. Those same people are now calling Obama a Nazi, a Communist (I am sure Hitler and Stalin would have a chuckle on that one), non-American, etc. etc.

Why do you hate Obama so much?

Re:Figures

[ragefan]

No. When there is a Republican president, then it was the last Democrat president's fault, even 8 years later. When there is a Democrat president, its his fault.

Re:Figures

[__aamnbm3774]

Thank you for proving my point. A 3.5% increase is not a cut-back.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Say it with me, Clinton NEVER had a surplus. What he had was excess from Social Security and Medicare revenue added to the general fund which made spending for 4 years less than the general fund took in. BUT you remove that SS and Medicare excess, which is future debt, and he never had a surplus.

If I ran my business accounting books the way the Federal Government run theirs I would go to jail for failure to meet SOX compliance.

Re:Figures

[Rockoon]

Clinton had a budget surplus.

If you want to give credit to government figures for the nearly balanced budget, then you have to give it to the Republicans.

One of the first things the House did in 1995 was to vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment. The bill passed the House 300 to 132. 98% of the representatives that voted against it in the House were Democrats.

The Senate picked up the bill but their 65 to 35 vote failed the 2/3rd majority needed. 94% of the representatives that voted against it in the Senate were Democrats.

The Republicans no longer take balancing the budge seriously, but back then they did. They controlled House and Senate at the time, so it was Republican budgets that were passed all through the Clinton years.

Stop listening to what the politicians are saying, and start watching what they are doing. And for fucks sakes if you are a liberal and you arent armed with stuff that you know are facts.. just shut the fuck up, because you guys are notorious for Big Lies.. for example, the guy I replied to and the army of liberals that say the exact same thing.

Re:Figures

[Nicolai Haehnle]

So, what is the national debt again?

Funny how distorted the discussion has become. The GP was talking about the size of the government, not the size of the national debt. You can have high deficit small government, and small deficit big government.

You have to understand that the government deficit is really just the mirror image of the private surplus plus the external surplus. Once you understand the sectoral balances (as explained in the linked article), you can chill out about the deficit and debt and start worrying about the things that really matter.

Re:Figures

[Nimey]

Nah. The right's been on a blame-Carter kick since around the end of Bush the Lesser's presidency.

Re:Figures

[JonySuede]

Go read about Buddy Roemer
From an outsider perspective this guys seems to be your best hope.

Re:Figures

[glodime]

inflation undermining the dollar's value

You should note that inflation has been historically low over the past 4 years.
Also, the USD has gained value relative to other widely circulated currencies since the Global economy turned downward in 2007.

Re:Figures

[glodime]

I'm no Obama supporter.
He has expanded on the bad that Bush got started.
He's OK with ignoring due process for Citizens of the USA (which I think should be extended to all people that the USA's government agencies accuse of a crime).
He lent money to insolvent corporations without a penalty rate or equity participation but would not consider lending or granting funds to insolvent or solvent but illiquid individuals during a credit freeze.
His staff was informing corporate board members of the about to be announced free money that was going to be handed to them.
He gave up until recently on filling the vacant Fed Board position after a little push back initially (when the Fed could have saved many people from extended unemployment)
He hasn't pushed for effective regulations on financial leverage and size of financial intermediaries.
He hasn't pushed for easier formation of Mutual financial intermediaries.
He ignored the unemployment epidemic after the initial stimulus bill.
He never publicly entertained a single payer health care system.

But he still seems better suited to run the country than his predecessor or hopeful successors now in Iowa.

Re:Figures

[Ihmhi]

The President's only real power in government is vetoing laws, making executive orders, and having command of the military.

Obama (and Bush, and all of the predecessors) had loads of options if Congress wouldn't cooperate.

1) Veto everything you don't like. Most laws nowadays don't pass with a mega majority, and it's much harder to override a veto than get a law passed and handed off to the President for signing.

2) Make executive orders about this or that. Obama loves this one, but some of the stuff he does is legally dubious.

3) Recall the troops from whatever war Congress and Friends are making money off of. If Obama said "All troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq within 72 hours, withdraw all sensitive intelligence, leave non-sensitive/classified equipment behind" I don't see why the military couldn't get it done. He's called Commander-In-Chief for a reason.

Re:Figures

[JasterBobaMereel]

"...the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in....."
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."

          -Douglas Adams

Re:Figures

[Jawnn]

Umm, I don't know if you noticed or not, but Obama hasn't shrunk the debt at all--he's grown it at a pace worse than Bush.

Mind you, Bush was undeniably horrible. But the takeaway here is this: there is NO SUCH THING as a "small government Republican" anymore.

Actually paying for the horrendous bills run up by the Bush administration can not correctly be labeled as growing the debt. Nice try. The numbers, all of them, are a matter of public record, there for anyone to to look at and analyze. Those to blame for the huge spikes in the deficit, for example, fairly leap off the page. Please stop trying to parrot bullshit Republican talking points here.

Re:Figures

[tmarsh86]

Yes, the dems actually had majority in both the House and Senate the last two years of Bush's admin. Lots of people seem to have forgotten that fact.

Re:Figures

[mr1911]

He was the best one! Never pissed anyone off.

Hillary disagrees with you.

Re:Figures

[mr1911]

Funny how distorted the discussion has become. The GP was talking about the size of the government, not the size of the national debt. You can have high deficit small government, and small deficit big government.

OK great. I'll restate for you.

So, how many federal employees and agencies are there again? How many last year, and the year before?

The government has grown wildly under all parties. Yeah, I know it is hard to troll when keeping reality in focus.

Re:Figures

[Loki_1929]

Clinton had a budget surplus.

No he didn't. It may have existed on paper, but in reality, the total debt grew under Clinton and every other President since Eisenhower. The last time we had a real surplus (as in, we took in more money than we spent) was 1956. Don't trust me; go to the US Dept of Treasury's website and look at the numbers yourself.

Re:Figures

[Loki_1929]

Social Security and Medicare aren't future debt; they're CURRENT debt. They hold the same US Treasury bonds as anyone else, can sell them to anyone else, and collect on them the same as anyone else. That particular debt is merely shuffled away into "Intragovernmental Holdings".

But yes, your overall point is correct. There was no surplus anymore than I can show a surplus in my personal budget by taking out a personal loan of $100,000. "Look, ma! I had a hundred grand surplus this year!"

Re:Figures

[Nicolai Haehnle]

The government has grown wildly under all parties.

I have not questioned that.

What I'm saying is that the question of big vs. small government is orthogonal to the question of the government's budget balance. That may seem like hair splitting, but it's really not. When you take a look at Modern Monetary Theory economists, you'll see a very wide variety of political opinion on the question of where they stand on big or small government (Warren Mosler is a good example, but of course their opinions are usually much more subtle).

But they all agree that the deficit and debt hysteria is a red herring.

Perhaps that's not what you want to have a debate about, and you would rather debate the question of the size of government. Fine with me. I'd just thought I should point out that you're confusing categories: size of government is more or less equal to the total size of government spending. The deficit and resulting debt are something different.

All I want is that the distinction is appreciated, because it would elevate the quality of the discussion. That you believe this to be trolling is surprising (and a bit depressing).

Re:Figures

[Loki_1929]

Technically Clinton didn't raid the Social Security trust fund. By law, all excess funds from normal operations (withholdings taken in minus benefits paid out and administrative expenses) at the end of the fiscal year are used to purchase US Treasuries. That money is then dumped into the general fund (as if it just dropped from Heaven).

This happens each and every year, by law. Clinton didn't do anything special; he just fought with the Republicans in Congress over spending (what to spend money on; not so much whether to spend tons of money) to the point that the deficit was small enough to be hidden behind this accounting sleight of hand. Clinton deserves no credit for "balancing the budget" or "creating a surplus" as neither of those statements reflect reality. At the same time, he deserves no blame for hiding the debt that created the illusory surplus since he didn't create the laws that hid the debt to make said false surplus appear.

Re:Figures

[mr1911]

I do not question your distinction between size of government and government spending.

However, your assumption that deficit spending is a red herring, and even further may be beneficial is flawed. That is the part I consider trolling. However, it is clear that you actually believe it, so it is not trolling but something, as you say, depressing.

Re:Figures

[obsess5]

And the Republicans had majorities for the first 6 years ...

Re:Figures

[hondo77]

Did you intentionally ignore the "non-defense discretionary spending actually went down by 0.7 percent" part?

Re:Figures

[fudmer]

Suppose we look to the real problem.. Instead of the sitting government and its persons, and the propaganda that focuses Americans wrongly on two divisions of folks of the same persuasion, lets look at the constitution and its faults. Blame the basic document that encourages the corruption that constitutes the two party system. One thing the America Republic system has is a basic document to go by. 230 years since the Declaration of Independence allows to revisit our system of governance. The contents of the constitution dictate the government, not the governed people of the land, their vote, or the court or anyone else. If there is a problem it should be discoverable within the expressions found therein, or in paragraphs it is missing. One thing I think I found is that the constitution can only be modified in one of two ways: neither of which permit the govern to modify it. I think that needs to be changed.

Re:Figures

[bussdriver]

Ha! They stopped reporting it after Greenspan left; you can't prove your statement because it became a secret; you can only estimate.

As far as relative value, that is a trick because the rest were also playing money games; relatively, a car going 50mph can speed past the pack and win the race because they are going 30mph... it doesn't matter if the film is sped up or slowed down (btw, this is one way they do racing for movies; actually kung fu also does it because the real thing goes too fast for the audience.) If you haven't noticed, many peoples of the world are seeing their buying power diminish... (since its all relative you arguably can't nail anything down; oil prices rise and that undermines actual buying power which is all that really matters no matter how much of the money you print.)

China is purposely keeping theirs low; another game which happens to make the USD look relatively better.

Re:Figures

[glodime]

Wow. Your ignorance here is blowing me away. I don't mean that as flamebait or trolling. I'm honestly shocked that you wrote what you did.

Seriously, go try to find proof that 'they' (I'm assuming that you mean the Federal Reserve since you mentioned Greenspan or the Federal government in general) stopped. You will find that the Federal Reserve never reported inflation directly but use data from the BEA and BLS in their research and reports. Neither the BEA nor the BLS has stopped reporting CPE or CPI, respectively.

Based on your claims, I'm guessing you read something about money stock levels as measures of inflation. In reality money measures don't track inflation well. The Fed did stop reporting its M3 measure in 2006 shortly after Bernanke became Chair. The reason given was: "M3 does not appear to convey any additional information about economic activity that is not already embodied in M2 and has not played a role in the monetary policy process for many years."

Inflation rates are measures of relative value across time in a common currency. Exchange rates are relative value of different currencies at the same time. You are clearly conflating the two in your mind.

Grammar Police

[scubamage]

FEDS NOW PLAN! Argh!! Double check subby, its not that friggen hard!

And the beat goes on

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm counting down the days until the "Feds Now Plan to Open 1,200 Data Centers" Slashdot story when the consolidate/separate pendulum swings back the other way. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for maximizing resource utilization and reducing unnecessary duplication, but do wonder what's being sacrificed in the process. Hopefully just unnecessary PHBs...

What happens to the hardware?

[novalis112]

Government auction? That's a lot of computer bits...

Re:What happens to the hardware?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Government auction? That's a lot of computer bits...

Start here

Chicago politics ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. What is probably happening is that data centers are being consolidated to locations in Illinois. For some strange reason many of the President's projects favor that state.

Re:Chicago politics ...

[YrWrstNtmr]

i'm sure the 113 DOD sites are not relocating to illinois.

By coincidence, guess where a major USAF data center is...Scott AFB

Re:Chicago politics ...

[hondo77]

{{fact}}

Re:Chicago politics ...

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

As an IT guy associated with USAF IT for 20+ years I can assure that the Scott AFB data center has nothing to do with Obama being president. The Air Force Communications Agency (under many names) has been located at Scott for over 30 years and the Communications Agency folks naturally favor putting this kind of stuff close to where they live. In one form or an other that data center has been there since the seventies. Also probably related to the number of communications lines that go through the region to cross the Mississippi on the St Louis bridges.

What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[sirwired]

3,133 Data Centers? Does some computer-savvy worker taking some initiative to back up the PC's in the Outer Podunk Forestry Station by sticking a cheap NAS box in the closet underneath the shelves of tree-climbing gear count as a "Data Center"?

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Sollord]

Since they include "telcom closets" now the answer is likely yes. I've lots of dumb stuff labeled as a telcom closet

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Entrope]

The memos that talk about the data centers make the criteria clear. A "data center is defined as: *Any room that is greater than 500 square feet and devoted to data processing; and, * Meets one of the tier (I, II, III & IV) classifications defined by the Uptime Institute."

If you are surprised that the US Federal government has more than 3,000 of those -- welcome to the (not-so-)new bureaucracy, trying hard to pretend it is a technocracy.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[afidel]

You think 3,133 datacenters across 1,300 agencies is a lot? No, this is just the number of redundant facilities they are planning to close I'm sure there are five times as many remaining open. Heck even then that's only one datacenter per 150 employees which is high but only about double what my S&P 500 employer has (two for 600 employees).

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Firehed]

There's a big difference between "two for 600 employees" and "one per 300 employees". The former is (likely) 1+backup for all employees, whereas the latter is just wasteful stupidity. I'm guessing if your employer doubles its headcount, it will not expand to four datacenters to support them.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[WalkingBear]

With that kind of criteria,the room in my house with my firewall, nas, media server and telecom equipment is a data center. It's just over 500sq feet and I haven't had more that 8 hours of power or network outage in all of 2011.

It's also my photo studio, but the criteria doesn't say you can't do more than just computing in the room. :)

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Pharmboy]

Maybe the problem is that the federal government has too many employees to start with. They don't generate wealth or create jobs, so maybe we could start with getting rid of a bunch of those jobs. Starting with the TSA. Next we move to the Drug Czar's office, then the Department of Education.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[afidel]

Correct though if it was not for virtualization we would be at three as we were at about 110% of design capacity a few years ago prior to starting a serious VMWare deployment (we had grown from 60 to 170 servers at the primary datacenter, today we're down to 87 and might be at 60 or fewer by the end of the year if we have enough time to virtualize everything we want to in between all our other projects).

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[oneiros27]

It's also my photo studio, but the criteria doesn't say you can't do more than just computing in the room

Yes it does. It must be 'devoted to data processing'. Of course, they never define 'data processing', so maybe it it were a digital camera, they'd still consider it.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, the government doesn't generate any wealth whatsoever, they just:

1) Allow wealth generation to happen at all (by maintaining roads, public transit, police forces, fire departments, and other services necessary to the functioning of a modern society)
2) Encourage wealth generation indirectly (by providing free or subsidized education that creates a more knowledgeable population, by providing libraries, museums, and other cultural institutes that extend that availability of education (artistic, cultural, and technical) to interested adults, etc.)
3) Encourage wealth generation directly (by investing in research and public works projects that corporations are unwilling or unable to fund, but which corporations often directly benefit from)
4) Provide social services which aim to keep people as contributing members of society, rather than let them slide into (nigh-irrecoverable) homelessness. (And, while it is easy and sometimes correct to say that individuals in such a position are there because of their own poor decisions, the reality is that they will, without alternative opportunities, likely turn to a life of crime that costs us -- either our safety if we let them continue to perpetrate crime, or a larger sum of money if we imprison them securely.)

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[MacDork]

The government generates plenty of wealth. They print money and hand it out to bankers on wallstreet in bailouts. They like to call it "Quantitative Easing" I believe. "Printing money and giving it to the wealthy ruling class while making everyone else collectively poorer via inflation" is so much more difficult to say.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Pharmboy]

Everything in your list is something that the individual states provide, NOT the federal government. Or at least it used to be that way.

If I have a problem with local roads, police, schools, etc. then I should be able to go to my city, or at the very worst, my state capital to protest. When the Federal government takes stuff over, no one will listen unless I pad their pockets with cash.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[JWSmythe]

    I'd suspect it's something pretty close to that. Not necessarily everyone with a box that they call a server, but more likely every department who allocated a space as a "server room" or "datacenter". Someone else said it had to be 500 sq/ft with some other qualifications.

    I do wonder if there are, for example, multiple agencies with their own spaces at places like Equinix.

    Having so many diverse spaces is good for no single point of failure, but bad for management across the enterprise (being the government as a whole).

    It would make a lot more sense for the government to own a handful of spaces (like a couple dozen maybe), the scale of the Equinix facilities. That would reduce the costs substantially over having a few thousand spaces being used.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[afidel]

Yes, QE does contribute to inflation, but inflation is not what you should be worrying about unless you are retired or nearing retirement, instead you should be worried about possible deflation. Inflation is a slow death through a thousand papercuts, deflation is death by a broadsword. I know I probably continue to have a job because of QE, I work in an industry that is absolutely reliant on access to capital, if the money supply starts to seriously constrain it's possible it would destroy my employer (as it almost did in 2008, our stock went from $70 to $1.20 in less than 18 months mostly due to fears that we would not be able to renew our loans).

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[afidel]

Really, states funded basic science research? Other than California and a few other states I'm not aware of any serious state level funding for research of any kind. Also having just completed a 2,500 mile road trip let me assure you that state highways suck compared to interstate highways.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Xphile101361]

If I have 1000 monkeys in the room writing the works of Shakespeare, is it still devoted to data processing?

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Pharmboy]

Half of the money for interstates comes from the state, not the feds. And the feds are fine helping with some interstates, the Constitution grants that authority under the "interstate commerce" clause. I drive a lot in NC, TX, VA, and the state highways aren't bad, so not sure where you live.

It used to be that scientific research was done by Universities (state supported) and private enterprise. I don't think that is such a bad thing. After the fiasco with the govt. "investing" in solar technology, I think they have demonstrated they aren't very good at "investing", only at padding the pockets of whoever is padding theirs.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[afidel]

The problem with Solara isn't that the government invested in them, it's that the Chinese government invested 20x as much in the competition in order to take over the market.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[Pharmboy]

So instead of giving them 500 million dollars, we should have given them 10 billion? No, the problem was that Solara padded Obama's pockets, they were in difficulties before the cash infusion, and there is nothing to show for our 500 million dollars. I noticed all their top position people never missed a paycheck as well.

Re:What qualifies as a "Data Center"?

[MacDork]

I'm pointing out the method is bad. The uneven distribution of new money is my core issue here. It gives the central bankers unlimited power.

uh oh...

[viperidaenz]

The unemployment rate for servers is going to skyrocket.

I work on this effort and it's horribly misguided

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud the efforts to consolidate and streamline government to prevent waste. However, the government, at least in Homeland Security, has no idea what they are doing when it comes to managing the data centers. They want to consolidate ALL Homeland Security assets into TWO data centers. Firstly, from a security perspective, two isn't really enough...need a bit more diversity than that (though certainly not the hundreds out there).

Worse yet is that one is not even owned by the government, but rather a Fortune computer company...which means that when the contract is up, they can increase the rates exorbitantly so, and the government has nothing they can do about it. Why? Because otherwise they would need to migrate all of these systems, which takes several years, at least. Way to go.

The contracts are already so screwed up...e.g. if we need to recable a government system, and we go and do the work, the company which owns the datacenter contract still gets paid as if they did the work. But we have to do it, because they always screw it up. Whoever wrote those contracts should be shot by us tax-payers.

Further, both are in flood zones, one is in a frequent hurricane zone (lightning/wind already took out our power systems once), and both are relatively east coast...really poor choices, geographically.

Oh right, and let's not forget that with all these systems migrating over, we are now seeing significant power and space concerns in the data centers. Shocked? Did the government ever determine the combined, used square footage of existing data centers and compare that with the data centers we are migrating to? I doubt it, or we wouldn't have such stupid issues. I'm sorry, but these data centers the government is migrating to are large, but by no means the largest I've ever seen. And they expect over 3000 data centers to roll up in them.

It's like they never went to kindergarten and are trying to jam a massive round ball into a tiny square hole with a big plastic hammer.

Lobbying is heavily involved here too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly I wish we knew 100% for sure these closures and other initiatives were about really saving money. Look at the very one-sided, corporate-commercial-cloud-services-or-die Defense bill recently signed into law. Someone just got a huge lobbying bonus.

Now there's a great idea, let's put highly sensitive DoD traffic into the same data centers as any other person can buy space into... instead of using the DoD's own cloud computing centers that are located in secure facilities, have dedicated staff with clearances, and have already consolidated hundreds of systems.

I wonder how these Congrescritters figure we're supposed to safely outsource all the highly classified email and data traffic that they just decided to no longer consolidate within the DoD's management. Or worse, how do they intend for all this to comply with the mountain of security protocols they have to follow even for unclassified traffic -- let alone stop another WikiLeaks from happening?

Colo?

[aaronb1138]

Please lie to me and tell me this will be followed by government auction colos, with fat pipes already laid. Might be a good time to pick up rack space cheap. Or we might be just looking at lists of broom closets with two poweredge 1850s in them.

Seriously though, federal auctions are the best place to get used, yet reasonably current hardware cheap. I got a laptop a year ago which still has warranty left that way (had to add a hdd).

FAA

[JBMcB]

The FAA has it's headquarters in DC (makes sense) major offices in Seattle (Boeing/Aerospace) and Chicago (Boeing and major flight hub) - all make sense. The FAA's big data center is in... Oklahoma City.

Re:FAA

[NetRanger]

Every plane registered is stored there, the logistics center is there, and their academy is located there too.

Why did OKC reach this prominence? Of all the lower 48 states, it has the best flying weather for most of the year.

Re:FAA

[timeOday]

So does google. Apparently the best place for corporate HQ and the best place for a data center are somewhat opposite.

Re:FAA

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Oklahoma City is where their Aeromedical Division is, those are the folks that make sure you aren't allowed to be a pilot if you aren't perfectly healthy or haven't been all your life - e.g. if you had hay fever as a child or something.

Re:FAA

[Anonymous Coward]

And navigational aid certifications/inspections, and flight procedure development and publishing, and flight standards development and research, and the list goes on and on. There's a lot of data intensive work done at that site.

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy's dead on. I see it, too. For extra fun, sometimes "closing" a data center means throwing away all the working equipment and buying completely new equipment to replace it in a different data center. I have no earthly idea how they think they're going to save any money. They just get a metric in their head and run with it. Fewer data centers is better, no matter what, right?

Huh?

[GoChickenFat]

Wholly smokes...

...and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.

I don't know what the savings are with these DC closures...the article doesn't say. But tell me where in these numbers you see a liberal shrinking the debt http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm - probably hosted on a server in one of the soon to be shuttered DCs...

Re:Huh?

[hondo77]

On this chart, down at the bottom. Go Truman and Ike (who would be considered a lefty by today's Republican party)!

Re:Huh?

[locketine]

You are aware that Bush was increasing the debt during an economic boom and Obama is increasing it during a recession, right? Tax revenue is the main difference between those two situations.

Also, debt only became an "important" issue to congress once Obama took office even though Bush's policies are responsible for a majority of the debt growth during Obama's term in office. If one wants to see an accurate accounting of who raised the debt and who lowered it they need to take into account the economic conditions and policy decisions made by each president as some decisions have longer lasting effects and longer delays before they impact the economy. A simple but rough accounting would be to look at the budget office's 10 year forecast during a president's term in office as those at least try to deal with the long term implications of policy decisions.

as fiber is near lot's of rail lines

[Joe_Dragon]

And Chicago is full of them.

While you're at it...

[bradorsomething]

Why don't you close down those "datacenters" in the phone company closets, too.

Auction

[zero0ne]

So, anyone know where I can go to try and purchase some of this hardware? My guess is it will be sold off extremely cheap.

Need a few more dev servers!

Possibly not as good as it sounds...

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume most of those DoD sites will be moving to DISA. Having priced the cost to move our server farm to the OKC DISA site, I can tell you that it is far from a cost savings move, as it would actually increase costs by a factor of 10, as well as decrease response time to system events due to a lack of direct server access (software not physical).

Consolidation within the Govt. is rarely as clean and smart as in the private sector, and never as cost effective.

Re:Possibly not as good as it sounds...

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Better yet move your stuff to the ABL. Not even DISA owned. Can't provide a cost list to host stuff (6 months ago)? But lets move everything there because it will save money.

Why the assumptions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinton also had the most ridiculous economy in the last hundred years.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve 'some' credit for not spending it all, but the surplus was more related to how fast the economy was growing than a cut-back in government spending.

Why should spending be cut and revenue not increased? Why is a smaller government superior to a larger government?

Useless data centers

[lucm]

They are not needed anymore because:

1) the big hardware vendors already made their money
2) the contractors who installed and configured the hardware already made their money
3) the corrupt purchasing officials have already made their money from the bribes they got from the hardware vendors and the contractors
4) the software vendors will keep racking up software maintenance fees since all those physical servers will become VMs

It's called "greed computing".

Re:Useless data centers

[berashith]

wow, this is painful. There truly is no money to be made from letting a sleeping dog lie. As government budgets must be spent, and there is rarely anyone that actually avoids useless spending of this money, then obviously the thing to do when all installations are done and running is not maintain and monitor, but to scrap it all and rebuild a new way. If this initiative is brought to large scale public attention, we will get to see a lot of spin on job creation and "green-ness".

In a word

[NotQuiteReal]

Why is a smaller government superior to a larger government?

Freedom

Re:In a word

[JasterBobaMereel]

Freedom to starve, Freedom to enjoy the fresh open air, freedom to be bullied by corporations ....

Small Government is bad it can't protect you

Big Government is bad it over protects you ... ..as always the median is the ideal

Re:In a word

[TheLink]

It's quality not quantity that matters more.

Obsessing over government size is stupid and just causes people to try to fix the wrong problem.

Would having a smaller number of voters be superior to a larger number of voters?

Only if you somehow get the right (good quality) small bunch of voters. Otherwise if you pick the wrong small bunch you'd be screwed.

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[roc97007]

I feel your pain.

> if we need to recable a government system, and we go and do the work, the company which owns the datacenter contract still gets paid as if they did the work. But we have to do it, because they always screw it up.

It's not just governments that trap themselves into this kind of contract.

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[shentino]

Actually if the data centers contracted do shoddy work can't they be pursued for breach or a false claims act?

Just because it's the feds doesn't mean its magically ok to screw them.

in soviet russia

[decora]

the data centers count you!!!

and SABRE, and Tinker, and Douglas Aircraft,

[decora]

and a crapload of other aviation stuff that has been in oklahoma historically.

anyways.

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[mtmra70]

Same thing is happening at my work. They are doing massive DC consolidation to the east coast. The fail-over DC is also on the east coast. Smart thinking!!!

What also gets me is part of the consolidation is for possible company divestitures. The only thing is they want to close a DC in a bldg where the potential divestiture will occur. So we close a DC only to sell the business in the bldg requiring them to reopen a DC and migrate everything back into it.

Modern Monetary Theory

[Nicolai Haehnle]

Welcome to topsy-turvy land. We've actually been here for awhile, with "fiscal conservative" presidents and legislatures growing the national debt and supposedly "tax and spend liberal" presidents actually shrinking debt.

It's bizarre how perverted the discussion has become due to the focus on deficit and debt. There is a reasonable political debate to be had on the question of whether government should be small or large. Should the government be responsible for maintaining basic infrastructure? For education? And so on.

But these questions should not be confused with discussions about the deficit and debt, at least on the federal level. The deficit is mostly endogenous. That is economist-speak for saying that the deficit is not directly controlled by political decision. Instead, it is largely the result of what happens in the private sector. If the private sector produces a lot of activity, this automatically results in higher tax payments and therefore a lower government deficit. If the private sector is running idle, tax revenue drops while at the same time federal outlays in social programs increase, hence the government deficit increases. Therefore, it is best to just let the deficit be whatever it needs to be. That is the approach of Functional Finance, which greatly influenced Modern Monetary Theory.

Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings. Start worrying about real things instead, like crumbling infrastructure or high unemployment - both are things that can very easily be fixed simultaneously at the federal level, if the deficit terrorists are finally silenced.

Re:Modern Monetary Theory

[cold fjord]

It's bizarre how perverted the discussion has become due to the focus on deficit and debt. ...
Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings.

Dear Sir,

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Sincerely

J. Weidmann
President
Deutsche Bundesbank

WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS?

In its most basic form, it's just this: Some countries in Europe have way too much debt, and now they risk not being able to pay it all back. Simple!

There's more to it than that, of course, but when people talk about the "crisis," what they're worried about is that a big, scary, flashpoint event will happen -- like one or more of the eurozone countries defaulting on its debts -- causing investors to panic and triggering a massive banking shock.

The possibility also looms that one or more countries will pull out of the eurozone -- the 17-nation bloc that use the euro currency, which has been around since 1999. Should any of the eurozone nations drop out of this group, it could lead to a rash of bank failures in Europe, and possibly in the United States as well. Under these circumstances, people and businesses who need money might not be able to get any. We'd be looking at depression for Europe and recession for the rest of the world. Some people argue that an orderly, controlled eurozone break-up would be a good thing for certain struggling debtor nations. Still, even this relatively benign scenario carries economic fallout for Europe and maybe beyond.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

The reason everyone is freaking out now is that while some eurozone countries are relatively sound from an economic standpoint, other countries are way over-leveraged, meaning they have too much debt relative to the size of their economies. And the troubles of a few countries could end up affecting everyone, yoked together under one currency for the last decade -- even though their economies functioned according to different habits and enjoyed very different degrees of financial health.

Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- gathered under the unfortunate acronym PIIGS -- are some of the most highly leveraged eurozone countries, and most people think that if a disaster happens, it will start with one of them. Italy's debt is 121 percent the size of its economy. For Ireland, that figure is 109 percent. In Greece, it's 165 percent.

The PIIGS took different paths to this scenario. Ireland, for example, underwent a massive real estate bubble, and its banks sustained giant losses. The Irish government wound up rescuing its banks, and now the country is burdened under a huge debt load.

Spain, which now has a 22 percent unemployment rate, also experienced a huge housing bubble. The country didn't indulge in excessive borrowing -- rather, it ended up with high deficits because it couldn't collect enough tax revenue to cover its expenses.

Greece, on the other hand, not only borrowed beyond its means, but exacerbated the problem with lots of overspending, little economic production to make up the difference, and some creative bookkeeping to prevent eurozone authorities from realizing the true extent of the situation.

The deficits weren't piling up everywhere. Countries with strong economies like Germany and France were keeping their output high and their debt at a manageable level. But when 17 nations use the same currency, trouble spreads quickly.

Now that the size of the PIIGS' debt has become clear, investors are getting more and more reluctant to buy bonds from European countries, since many of those countries are heavily in debt -- and the ones that aren't in debt look like they might have to assume responsibility for the ones that are. Investors don't want to put their money into bonds if they think they might not eventually get that money back. And

Re:Modern Monetary Theory

[Nicolai Haehnle]

It's bizarre how perverted the discussion has become due to the focus on deficit and debt. ...
Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings.

Dear Sir,

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Sincerely

J. Weidmann
President
Deutsche Bundesbank

... snip lots of stuff about the Eurozone debt crisis ...

I appreciate the sarcasm, but it mostly shows that you have either not read about or not understood the implications of MMT. The situation of the Eurozone countries is more like that of US states, since they are currency users, not issuers. They are not monetary sovereigns. In fact, US states have much less debt relative to GDP than the Eurozone countries, and as non-sovereigns, they have to have low levels of debt. The problem is that within a currency, there must be someone with growing levels of debt to allow growing levels of private savings. In the US, the federal government typically plays this role (the only reason there was a surplus under Clinton was that, during that time, the financial sector successfully convinced the rest of the private sector to take on more and more debt, i.e. the savings rate of the private sector was negative - historically an extremely atypical situation, which was unsustainable and lead to the GFC). In the Eurozone, nobody can play this role. That is why there is a crisis in Europe: the Eurozone was doomed to fail from the start.

I admittedly did not mention the importance of monetary sovereignty in my earlier post, but one cannot always write everything. Since the discussion was clearly about the US situation, I left it out for brevity.

Re:Modern Monetary Theory

[Loki_1929]

Stop worrying about the deficit or the debt. They are meaningless, red herrings.

I'm former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and I approve this message.

Re:Modern Monetary Theory

[Nicolai Haehnle]

I'm former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and I approve this message.

What's with all the sarcasm attempts these days?

Anyway, just like your sibling comment, you have to understand the difference between a monetarily sovereign government like the US federal government, and a government that is only a currency users, such as the Greek government. And just like your sibling comment, you may find a look at the Eurozone situation from an MMT perspective interesting.

Also see my reply to the sibling comment.

Re:Modern Monetary Theory

[Loki_1929]

Actually, the US Federal government is also only a currency user, ever since 1913. The US Dept of the Treasury has no legal authority to create new US Dollars and should Congress remove that authority from the Federal Reserve (a pseudo-private/public institution whose owners are US banks but who is somewhat answerable to the US Congress and the President) in the middle of the mess we're seeing, it would bring about an economic panic that would dwarf any we've heretofore witnessed. Greece, Ireland, and others are all perfectly able to coin their own money at will. They need only abdicate treaties prohibiting it and fire up the printing presses. The reason they haven't done so is that it's economic suicide.

But that's all nothing but an aside. We've seen in Germany, Zimbabwe, and many others what happens when you attempt to coin your way out of a massive fiscal debt.

Since you seem to believe that sovereign debt doesn't matter so long as you control your own currency, let me ask you this: what happens when the US pays more in debt servicing than its entire annual revenue combined and we begin borrowing for 100% of spending plus x% of the debt servicing?

Re:Modern Monetary Theory

[Nicolai Haehnle]

Actually, the US Federal government is also only a currency user, ever since 1913. The US Dept of the Treasury has no legal authority to create new US Dollars

The so-called independence of the Fed is all smoke and mirrors. The Fed was created by Congress, it has to operate under the rules set by Congress, and it can be undone by Congress. More importantly, even today the Fed does not operate independently from the Treasury. The Fed and Treasury coordinate their transactions to enable the Fed to manage the bonds market. Seriously, read up on it.

a pseudo-private/public institution whose owners are US banks but who is somewhat answerable to the US Congress and the President

That is quite misleading. Outside of regulatory capture (which is unfortunately a very real thing), the banks have exactly zero influence over the politics of the Fed. They are formally owners, but even the profit of the Fed is largely paid out to the Treasury.

This last point highlights just how absurd the institutional setup is, by the way. The profit of the Fed is in large part due to interest that the Treasury pays to the Fed for the bonds that the Fed owns. The profit is then paid back to the Treasury. Hooray for smoke and mirrors bureaucracy!

should Congress remove that authority from the Federal Reserve (...) in the middle of the mess we're seeing, it would bring about an economic panic that would dwarf any we've heretofore witnessed.

Oh, really. Never mind the fact that such an action wouldn't even be necessary, what form do you imagine this economic panic would take? I assume it'll be like the panic that happened after Treasuries were downgraded to AA+?

Greece, Ireland, and others are all perfectly able to coin their own money at will. They need only abdicate treaties prohibiting it and fire up the printing presses. The reason they haven't done so is that it's economic suicide.

Bad comparison, because Greece and Ireland are in a very different situation. Their problem, especially in the case of Greece, is that its currency should have devalued significantly relatively to currencies of the rest of the world, but that was prevented because Greece tied itself to the Euro. Countries that do not have pegged currencies don't suffer from the same problem, because their exchange rates never go that far off-kilter.

That said, I would say that reintroducing their own currency is in fact the best thing Greece can do economically. Better to have a very painful but short cut followed by a swift recovery, than to suffer many years of economic depression. Argentina is a good example that this can work.

We've seen in Germany, Zimbabwe, and many others what happens when you attempt to coin your way out of a massive fiscal debt.

I was wondering when the inflation bogeyman would show up. Hyperinflation in Germany and Zimbabwe was never about printing too much money; that was just the spectacular side effect of other, very different problems. This is a good introductory paper. Tl;dr: in both cases, a collapse of productive capacity combined with foreign currency-denominated debts created an impossible situation. Printing money was a symptom rather than a cause.

What happens when the US pays more in debt servicing than its entire annual revenue combined and we begin borrowing for 100% of spending plus x% of the debt servicing?

Since that can only happen due to the interest that the government pays on the debt, the answer is very simple: decrease the interest rate. The interest rate is a political choice set by the Fed, after all.

If the decreasing interest rate should cause people to buy and invest instead of saving, even better: This will cause tax r

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[locketine]

Please please anonymously submit a complaint to your congressman about this issue. I'm absolutely sick of seeing the government write horrible contracts. How the hell do they manage to do this with so many lawyers working for them?

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[Nimey]

Because some powerful senator's got the benefiting private company in his district.

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[Cylix]

Indeed, at a previous employer one group of our data centers or co-locations had some pretty lousy techs. I had worked over the phone to remotely have some one off equipment cabled up and it was complete fail sauce. Eventually, I decided to stop wasting our money as I was scheduled to go out to do maintenance anyway. My cabling worked quite fine and the time they wasted would have paid for the flight and hotel.

Oddly, they had to borrow my onsite equipment to do the work as well. We kept fully stocked shelves for virtually every need. Even so far as to providing our own server lift. (I felt bad for the guys so my thoughts were you can borrow it, but I don't want to know in case you hurt yourselves.)

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[Ramin_HAL9001]

Further, both are in flood zones, one is in a frequent hurricane zone (lightning/wind already took out our power systems once), and both are relatively east coast...really poor choices, geographically.

What are you talking about? The state representative who chose that location received a solemn promise of a stable consulting job at a tech company with an outrageously large salary, and as a result created jobs in his/her district by offering the most tax breaks to the private company to set up that data center in that flood zone. It is in a perfect location geographically.

Or when you said "perfect" you meant they could have found safer geographic location to run data processing equipment? Phffft. What do you know about politics?

Re:IT seems like...

[Z00L00K]

Just be aware that over-consolidation can also cause problems. A very centralized solution means that any downtime will cost a lot more.

And even when things works as they should you may suffer from the little devil called network latency that slowly eats up man-hours.

This will result in 7,000 data centers

[gelfling]

Of course the results of any government mandated reduction is an explosion of growth. The first thing to happen is an audit to identify all these facilities. It gets passed up the food chain where some under deputy flunky discovers the true size of his or her empire. Then they all move in unison to protect their own at everyone else's expense. This results in everything being reclassified as critical, they are all protected and then they discover how to exploit their own budget process to make them grow and grow.

It's all about consolidation rather than closure

[TrAvELAr]

So consider a lab with 2 racks of equipment in it. It is considered a data center. A big part of this effort is to consolidate equipment like that into an actual data center environment (with proper cooling and power) and weed out what is not needed (there is a lot of it). Virtualizing servers where applicable is also going to help save power, which is what part of this initiative is aiming for.

Auctioned Equipment Response:

[amcdiarmid]

You probably do not want the equipment from the closed Data Centers: It is End of Live & does not have manufacturer support.

We have virtualized something like ~200 physical servers in our Data Center. Most were End Of Life (HP DL G4 360's and 380's) and were virtualized instead of replaced.

Our main DataCenter (Class 2?) has functionally freed more than 1/2 of it's space, and had departmental servers from "other Server Rooms" (aka: 10'x25' rooms with two racks) moved down there.

Do you really want an old HP G4 server that takes only SCSI drives, and runs a single core processor? I don't. OTOH, next time a cooling unit goes down, the room should still be cooled now ;)

Re:I work on this effort and it's horribly misguid

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Gotta agree. I know of more than one USAF owned Data Center that have less than 25% usage. Instead of consolidating USAF resources into the unused and almost brand new datacenter on an USAF owned and operated installation we are putting resources into the IBM owned and operated ABL and paying IBM for the privilege.

Why not consolidate into your own facilities? Because the US CIO made some off-hand comment about the ABL and consolidating into and all of a sudden that is the directive when the CIO meant consolidate intelligently and if it makes sense use the ABL.

Re:IT seems like...

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Did you keep a straight face while typing that?

Over simplification

[bussdriver]

The republicans and democrats are not flip sides. Americans like simple answers even when simple answers are not adequate and this ethos of the culture causes a great many of the nations problems (but they do not full grasp this because again, they cling to simple short answers.)

I would argue that a large reason for the two party duopoly is a reflection of the culture.

I've volunteered at both just for the experience. They differ greatly. Republicans are a more authoritarian culture and the Democrats are more anarchy (not really socialist.) It is somewhat ironic the anti-government group is more authoritarian but it makes sense as you dig deeper.

Ever hear of herding cats? That is the democrats. The Republicans are dogs herding sheep. Informed people should understand what I'm saying (sorry if your a sheep who prides yourself on your "independent" thinking.)

High corruption issues are above everything, then the two party illusion breaks momentarily.

I'm a promoter of politicalcompass.org because the 1D model is idiotic; the 2D grid is far superior. If we ever get people to grasp that and Americans to just use a 1D spectrum (which is more than right++,right,middle,left,left++ they seem to glaze over if you try to even explain the 2D model) maybe we can make some progress before we over populate ourselves into a nightmare.