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US Government Data Center Consolidation Behind Schedule, Cost Savings Uncertain

Posted by Unknown on from the metrics-are-hard dept.

itwbennett writes "The goal of saving $3 billion by closing 1253 data centers is 'very realistic,' says David Powner, director of IT management issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office — except that agencies haven't been able to track cost savings for the initiative. Eighteen months from the 2015 deadline, 'we have no idea how much we've saved the taxpayers,' said Steve O'Keeffe, founder of MeriTalk, an online community for government IT issues. This isn't the first snag in the project. Almost a year ago, Slashdot reported that the project was woefully behind schedule." The government released a summary of what data they do have (PDF), and at least the DoD expects to save $575 million next fiscal year. Also see the full GAO report.

21 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. It's in the name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Powner, Director of IT? Can't make that up.

  2. surprise surprise by ganjadude · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ever notice how easy it is to spend other peoples money? they have no real reason to try and save that 3 billion because its not from their pockets. just raise taxes again and it will all be ok. In the end this will probably be like everything else

    "we know we told you this project would save you 3 billion but we made an error"

    what was the error?

    "well we meant to say cost, not save. this change will cost you 3 billion"

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    1. Re:surprise surprise by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      Ever notice how easy it is to spend other peoples money? they have no real reason to try and save that 3 billion because its not from their pockets. just raise taxes again and it will all be ok. In the end this will probably be like everything else
          "we know we told you this project would save you 3 billion but we made an error"
          what was the error?
        "well we meant to say cost, not save. this change will cost you 3 billion"

      savings would mean that some people would be making themselves redundant. so what to do? fire half the people in the projects randomly in advance. sounds stupid, but works.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:surprise surprise by geoffrobinson · · Score: 2

      It's just basic economics. When you aren't spending your own money, you aren't incentivized to control costs.

      --
      Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  3. Re:!able, unwilling by alen · · Score: 2

    i worked for an DoD agency 13 years ago for a year. We had a main NT domain with a child domain for each of the 6 regional offices

    the admin in one of the offices refused to set up a trust between his domain and the main domain. for some reason no one could make him do it. i bet same here. some of the admins in the smaller offices are refusing to go along with this

  4. Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If, as even the Democrats admit, the government is "too vast" for the President to be responsible, we ought to be shrinking it, rather than continue its expansion to the new domains (like, uh, healthcare)...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by mi · · Score: 3, Informative

      Failure to deal with the nation ending enormous failure of the "free market" solution to a social issue of health care

      Sadly, the healthcare market in the US has not been free since the 1940-ies. During the War the government sought to limit workers' salaries, so, to attract talent, employers started offering "benefits" — like health insurance. This separated payers for health-care from the consumers of it — triggering the spiraling costs as the patients demanded the very best, while blaming the insurers for attempts to keep the costs sensible. The government compounded the problem making such benefits tax-deductible for employers, without counting them as taxable income for the employees.

      Actually freeing the market would've helped — but, for some reason, the "reformers" were dead set against the competition (without which the market can not be considered free). Even buying a health plan from a different State is illegal, certainly not from a foreign insurer. One can even be forgiven for thinking, the sabotage of the market was deliberate — so as to allow to claim "market failure" and finally give the politicians the power they all tend to crave after 2 or 3 terms in office (some even sooner).

      Instead of freeing, the market got under an even harder government control. Yes, control of that same benevolent omniscient government, that can not consolidate freaking datacenters... But don't worry, they will know, how to best allocate your monies (that you paid in taxes through your life) to your healthcare — that you will need primarily after retiring...

      Oh, and the actual government agency ensuring compliance will be the same one, that already picks targets for audits and scrutiny based on the taxpayers' political persuasion. Are you honestly claiming, healthcare will improve in such circumstances? Will you really be surprised to learn, 30 years from now, that Conservatives are having their life-support turned-off, say, 30% sooner, than Progressives because the local "Independent Payment Advisory Board" (a.k.a. "death panel") decided against their case?

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    2. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by mi · · Score: 2

      Right, because it's impossible for government to handle health insurance well.

      "Fallacy of excluded middle". I did not say it is "impossible". It is possible — and is, indeed, done in all the places you list. But it is done poorly in all of those places.

      Instead it involves the always efficient "private sector"

      Free market is the most efficient thing humanity has come up with. Our problem was that this particular market was not at all free — not for decades... Instead of freeing it, Obamacare made it even worse...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    3. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by mi · · Score: 2

      Only the failures make the news. Things going normally are not news worthy.

      Well, that did not prevent you from claiming, there are "thousands" of successes... But then you get called on it and can not name even a handful... Maybe, there really aren't (that m)any?

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    4. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When you use a term like 'death panel' you are showing that you have not separated emotion from logic. It's a word used solely to activate an emotional response. It's completely meaningless as any healthcare whether private or public will make a cost/benefit analysis. Do you call every decision that a private health insurer makes a 'death panel'? You may make some decent points but as long as you are allowing your emotion to fill in those little gaps in knowledge that everyone has you will not see the entire problem.

      If you compare countries with and without socialized healthcare the lifespan and living conditions of people are dramatically different. What was the lifespan in 1930? What exactly are you comparing to the last 70 years too? What cross country comparisons have you made? What other variables and factors have you taken into consideration? Have you really thought about this or did you have a position and then find things that fit your view? Any honest consideration of socialized healthcare would find both positive and negative issues. If you only find negative ones (or positive ones for that matter) then you view is distorted and your opinion questionable.

      Here's a hint for everybody. All large organizations have similar positives (economies of scale and explicit processes) and negatives (slow to change and overhead). It doesn't really matter whether you call that large organization a company, a government or a church.

    5. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by moeinvt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Medicare is "cheaper"? Yeah, because government fixes the prices they pay. Nothing is "free". Government stiffs the hospital by price fixing Medicaid/Medicare services, so hospitals just shift that cost onto everyone else, especially the uninsured.
      Government forces hospitals to treat people at emergency rooms regardless of their willingness or ability to pay, but does not fund this mandate, so that also translates into higher bills for everyone else. Government bans re-importation of prescription drugs & medical devices, thus forcing Americans to subsidize R&D for the rest of the world and guarantee profits for big pharma.

      With all of this cost shifting, retail prices are insanely expensive, so people are compelled to buy insurance. There's how your worthless middle man enters the picture, and now you MUST buy his product or the IRS will be after you.

      Government has been heavily involved in the healthcare system for 50 years. What's the result? Costs have exploded, millions are unable to afford basic services, quality of service is poor for the price paid, etc. etc. Yet people think that even more government is the "solution"? That's how Einstein defined "insanity".

      Eliminating a middle man would reduce costs. Competition and innovation would also drive down costs and increase quality. Government price controls and mandates do exactly the opposite.

    6. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by moeinvt · · Score: 2

      "we're going to drag you kicking and screaming in to the future"

      "you're too stupid to do so yourself."

      You arbitrarily assert your intellectual superiority and thus decide that you're going to steal my wealth and coerce my behavior under threat of violence? For my own good?

      "We're liberals."

      Oh really? Never would have guessed.

    7. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by moeinvt · · Score: 2

      "...enormous failure of the "free market" solution to a social issue of health care"

      It never ceases to amaze me that we can have a situation where the big government "solution" has been an utter and complete catastrophe, but the government worshipers INSIST that the evil "free market" is the problem.

      Government implemented Medicare. They implemented Medicaid. They ordered hospitals to treat everyone at the ER regardless of whether or not they could pay. They mandate what services insurance policies must cover. They encourage and facilitate cartel behavior in both healthcare and insurance. They ban competition in the drug and medical device markets.

      Obviously this system sucks, and it's a direct result of the fact that government destroyed the free market through price fixing, cost shifting, unfunded mandates and stupid regulations.

      The only sectors of the economy that even compare to the healthcare disaster are housing and higher education, which the government has also ruined with their stupid policies.

    8. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by moeinvt · · Score: 2

      A healthcare system where the user pays no marginal cost for services will create nearly infinite demand for services. Government cannot possibly pay for this. Therefore, services must be rationed and limited to constrain costs. Yes, "death panel" is emotional rhetoric, but it has an element of accuracy. In a government-run healthcare system, bureaucrats will inevitably be making life and death decisions.

      The benefits of socialized medicine are that everyone has access to services at no marginal cost, the role of the middle man is very limited and billing procedures are simplified.

      The negatives are too numerous to list in this comment, but it's essentially the same as every other socialistic scheme. Everyone is equal and equally miserable.

      The free market is the solution for providing the most services to the most people at the lowest cost and with the highest quality. The free market WORKS when government doesn't wreck it. The drawback is that some people will not be able to afford services. That's where WE, as individuals or as part of charitable organizations (not the F&*%ing government) have a moral responsibility.

    9. Re:Whatever the government does, it does poorly... by moeinvt · · Score: 2

      Didn't your parents explain to you that violence is only justified in response to aggression? I thought liberals were peaceful people? What justification do you have for imposing your beliefs on others with threats of violence? Having delusions about the superiority of your intelligence doesn't qualify.

  5. Re:!able, unwilling by timeOday · · Score: 2

    Sure, any organization has internal conflicts of interest when somebody is tasked to train their own replacement etc. That half billion in savings is mainly going to be salaries after all.

  6. Save now vs. over time by Enry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How much have they saved now? Probably not much, and probably spent more.

    It costs money to find the location, arrange the contracts, hire new people/lay off or move staff, and move equipment between rooms. Even then, many organizations may say it's cheaper to buy new hardware than it is to move 5+ year old servers.

    However, the efficiency once many of those data centers is closed will become apparent. Space/power/cooling/networking/staff isn't cheap. Consolidating will give you some amazing savings a few years in.

  7. A Sign of the Times by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know you're in trouble when they speak of how much money they're saving instead of how much they spent to acquire a feature or benefit. What about the data center that stores every digital interaction in America? I bet that costs a pretty penny to operate, let's shut it down, it's not doing us any good. Didn't stop the Boston Bombing... Hell, zoning laws could have prevented the recent explosion in West, TX (which was more harmful than the Boston bombs), but I don't see them trying to save anything at all anywhere -- Not even lives.

    "Honey, look what I got, you wouldn't believe how much money I saved today!" -- No. She spent money, didn't "save" a dime. I'll evaluate cost to benefit ratio to determine if the purchases were wise.

    Want to save money? Why not get rid of the DHS? They're not needed. We have FBI and cops already. We don't need a huge cumbersome annoying workforce of security guards who don't actually provide security. You Can't Provide Security for others -- They can only protect themselves, and should be aware of surroundings and cautious of dangers if need be; That saves money and lives.

    How much of the money they're spending on 3rd party contractors is wasted by inflating the costs to turn a profit? I'm not stupid. They haven't saved a dime one.

  8. They need another datacenter by hawguy · · Score: 2

    They need another datacenter to hold the computers that track the cost savings from the other datacenters.

  9. Two things are certain. by 3seas · · Score: 2

    Hovernment does not know how to budget and Software is always behind schedule.
    Put the two toigether and you'll not have any savings at all but a growing cost.

  10. Re:!able, unwilling by NecroPuppy · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm (sorta) one of those admins.

    It's not that local sites are refusing to go along with the data center consolidation, as we have to justify anything that stays here instead of moving to the data center 400 miles away, it's that in a lot of cases the data center people are saying, "You have to move", and then not understanding the reasons why we can't.

    Whether or not this lack of understanding is deliberate or not, I'm not sure. We lowered our explanation to about a 6th grade comprehension level, and they finally seemed to get it, at least while they were on site.

    Stuff like:

    "These are the daily and weekly tasks we must perform with this system - you will have to sign an MOU/MOA (Memorandum of Understanding/Agreement) where you will accomplish these tasks how we tell you to." (Often, they didn't have the trained personnel to do it.)

    "You will have to provide 24/7/365 uptime, with at least three 9s reliability (yes, I know that's low, but we couldn't justify higher), including the ability to do file level restoration." (They really balked at the file level restoration.)

    "You have to have trained support personnel with OS experience." Their response was, "We can upgrade that to ." Our rebuttal, "No you can't, it has to stay in that exact configuration until changes are tested and approved by Echelon II."

    We got to keep most of our stuff, at least so far.

    --
    I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.