While the term “data center” can be used to describe any room used for the purpose of processing or storing data, OMB defines a data center as a room that is greater than 500 square feet, that is used for processing or storing data, and that meets stringent availability requirements. Other facilities are classified as “server rooms,” which are typically less than 500 square feet and “server closets,” which are typically less than 200 square feet. According to OMB, the number of federal data centers grew from 432 in 1998 to 2,094 in July 2010. Operating such a large number of centers places costly demands on the government. While the total annual federal spending associated with data centers has not yet been determined, OMB has found that operating data centers is a significant cost to the federal government, including hardware, software, real estate, and cooling costs. For example, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the electricity cost to operate federal servers and data centers across the government is about $450 million annually. According to the Department of Energy (Energy), data center spaces can consume 100 to 200 times as much electricity as standard office spaces. Reported server utilization rates as low as 5 percent and limited reuse of these data centers within or across agencies lends further credence to the need to restructure federal data center operations to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In 2010, the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) reported that operating and maintaining such redundant infrastructure investments was costly, inefficient, and unsustainable. Concerned about the size of the federal data center inventory and the potential to improve the efficiency, performance, and environmental footprint of federal data center activities, in February 2010 OMB, under the direction of the Federal CIO, announced the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI). This initiative’s four high-level goals are to  promote the use of “green IT” by reducing the overall energy and real estate footprint of government data centers; reduce the cost of data center hardware, software, and operations; increase the overall IT security posture of the government; and shift IT investments to more efficient computing platforms and technologies. As part of FDCCI, OMB required 24 departments and agencies that participate on the Chief Information Officers Council (see table 1) to submit a series of documents that ultimately resulted in a data center consolidation plan. Specifically, the departments and agencies were to provide the following:  An initial asset inventory (due April 30, 2010), which was to provide a high-level understanding of the scale and size of existing data centers, IT infrastructure assets, and applications supported by the data centers.  An initial data center consolidation plan (due June 30, 2010), which was to identify potential areas for consolidation, areas where optimization through server virtualization or cloud computing alternatives could be used, and a high-level roadmap for transitioning to the consolidated end-state architecture.  A final asset inventory baseline (due July 30, 2010), which was to contain more detailed information and serve as the foundation for developing the final data center consolidation plans. The final inventory was also to identify the consolidation approach to be taken for each data center.  A final data center consolidation plan (due August 30, 2010), which was to be incorporated into the agency’s fiscal year 2012 budget and was to include a technical roadmap and approach for achieving the targets for infrastructure utilization, energy efficiency, and cost efficiency. In October 2010, OMB reported that all of the agencies had submitted their plans and that there were 2,094 federal data centers as of July 2010. OMB announced plans to monitor agencies’ consolidation activities on an ongoing basis as part of the annual budget process. Further, starting in fiscal year 2011, agencies will be required to provide an annual updated data center asset inventory at the end of every third quarter and a consolidation progress report at the end of every fourth quarter. To manage the initiative, OMB designated two agency CIOs as executive sponsors to lead the effort within the Chief Information Officers Council. Additionally, the General Services Administration (GSA) has established the FDCCI Program Management Office, whose role is to support OMB in the planning, execution, management, and communication for FDCCI. In this role, GSA collected the responses to the four document deliveries and reviewed the submissions for completeness and reasonableness. GSA also sponsored three workshops on the initiative for agencies and facilitated a peer review of the initial and final data center consolidation plans. In December 2010, OMB published its 25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management as a means of implementing IT reform in the areas of operational efficiency and large- scale IT program management. Among the 25 initiatives, OMB has included two goals that relate to data center consolidation: 1. By June 2011, complete detailed implementation plans to consolidate at least 800 data centers by 2015. 2. By June 2012, create a governmentwide marketplace for data center availability. To accomplish its first goal, OMB required each FDCCI agency to identify a senior, dedicated data center consolidation program manager. It also launched a Data Center Consolidation Task Force comprised of the data center consolidation program managers from each agency. OMB officials stated that this task force is critical to driving forward on individual agency consolidation goals and to meeting the overall federal target of closing a minimum of 800 data centers by 2015. To that end, in April 2011, OMB announced plans to close 137 data centers by the end of December 2011. OMB also plans to launch a publicly-available dashboard for observing agencies’ consolidation progress, but this has not yet been completed. To accomplish its second goal, OMB and GSA plan to create a governmentwide marketplace by June 2012 that will better utilize spare capacity within operational data centers. This online marketplace is intended to match agencies that have extra capacity with agencies with increasing demand, thereby improving the utilization of existing facilities. The marketplace will help agencies with available capacity promote their available data center space. Once agencies have a clear sense of the existing capacity landscape, they can make more informed consolidation decisions. We have previously reported on OMB’s efforts to consolidate federal data centers. In March 2011, we reported on the status of the FDCCI and noted that data center consolidation makes sense economically and as a way to achieve more efficient IT operations, but that challenges exist. For example, agencies face challenges in ensuring the accuracy of their inventories and plans, providing upfront funding for the consolidation effort before any cost savings accrue, integrating consolidation plans into agency budget submissions (as required by OMB), establishing and implementing shared standards (for storage, systems, security, etc. ), overcoming cultural resistance to such major organizational changes, and maintaining current operations during the transition to consolidated operations. We further reported that mitigating these and other challenges will require commitment from the agencies and continued oversight by OMB and the Federal CIO. To help agencies plan their consolidations, OMB issued guidance on the required content of data center inventories and consolidation plans. Specifically, the inventories were to include descriptions of the assets present within individual data centers, as well as information about the physical data center itself. The consolidation plans were to address key elements, including goals, approaches, schedules, cost-benefit calculations, and risk management plans. As required, 23 of the 24 agencies submitted their inventories and consolidation plans by the end of September 2010; the remaining agency explained that consolidation was not applicable to them. However, of the 23 reporting agencies, all but one of the inventories and all of the plans are missing key elements. For example, 14 agencies do not provide a complete listing of data centers and 15 do not provide a complete listing of software assets in their inventories. Further, OMB did not require that agencies verify these inventory data. Additionally, in their consolidation plans, 20 agencies do not provide a master schedule, 12 agencies do not address cost-benefit calculations, and 9 do not address risk management. Several agency officials noted that they had difficulty completing their inventories and plans within OMB’s timelines. Other agencies reported trouble with identifying either required information for the plans or data on the assets within their data centers. Until these inventories and plans are complete, agencies may not be able to implement their consolidation activities or to realize expected cost savings. Moreover, without an understanding of the validity of agencies’ consolidation data, OMB cannot be assured that agencies are providing a sound baseline for estimating consolidation savings and measuring progress against those goals. In their consolidation plans, agencies identified goals for reducing the number of data center facilities and these facilities’ related costs. Specifically, the 23 reporting agencies identified 1,590 data centers as of April 2011, and established goals for reducing that number by 652 centers by the end of fiscal year 2015. Most federal departments and agencies also estimated cost savings over time. Specifically:  Fourteen agencies reported savings totaling about $700 million between fiscal years 2011 and 2015; however, actual savings may be even higher because 12 of these agencies’ estimates were incomplete. For example, 11 agencies included expected energy savings and reductions in building operational costs, but not savings from other sources, such as equipment reductions.  Two agencies expect to accrue net savings after fiscal year 2015.  Two agencies do not expect to attain net savings from their consolidation efforts.  Five agencies did not provide estimated cost savings; however, two of these agencies suggested that they plan to develop cost-benefit analyses in the future. As part of the data center consolidation initiative, OMB required agencies to provide an inventory of data center assets. This inventory is to address four key elements: (1) IT software assets; (2) IT hardware assets and their utilization; (3) IT facilities, energy, and storage; and (4) geographic location and real estate. According to OMB’s guidance, the information is to be organized by data center.