The federal government spends more than $80 billion each year on information technology (IT) investments; in FY2017 that investment is expected to increase to more than $89 billion. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that, historically, the projects supported by these investments have often incurred "multi-million dollar cost overruns and years-long schedule delays." In addition, they may contribute little to mission-related outcomes and, in some cases, may fail altogether. These undesirable results, according to GAO, "can be traced to a lack of disciplined and effective management and inadequate executive-level oversight." The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act ( FITARA ) was enacted on December 19, 2014, to address these issues and codify existing initiatives managed by the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO). FITARA outlines seven areas of reform that affect how federal agencies purchase and manage their information technology (IT) assets, including the following: enhancing the authority of agency CIOs; improving transparency and risk management of IT investments; setting forth a process for agency IT portfolio review; refocusing the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI) from only consolidation to optimization; expanding the training and use of "IT Cadres," as initially outlined in the "25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Management Technology"; maximizing the benefits of the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI); and creating a govemment-wide software purchasing program, in conjunction with the General Services Administration. Among other provisions, FITARA codified elements of existing Federal CIO initiatives. In addition, FITARA requires the Federal CIO, in conjunction with federal agencies, to refocus the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI) from consolidation to optimization, to include adoption of cloud services; set forth a process for agency IT portfolio review and oversight; improve transparency and risk management of IT investments; identify and publish cost savings and optimization improvements; provide public updates on cumulative cost savings and optimization improvements; and review agencies' data center inventories and management strategies. FITARA requires federal agencies to submit annual reports that include comprehensive data center inventories, multiyear strategies to consolidate and optimize data centers, performance metrics and a time line for agency action, and yearly calculations of investment and cost savings related to FITARA implementation. Generally, agencies identified in the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990, as well as their subordinate divisions and offices, are subject to the requirements of FITARA. The DOD, the intelligence community, and portions of other agencies that operate systems related to national security are subject to only certain portions of FITARA. Additionally, executive branch agencies not named in the CFO Act are encouraged, but not required, to follow FITARA guidelines. On June 10, 2015, OMB published guidance to implement the requirements of FITARA and harmonize existing policy and guidance with the new law. Among other goals, the requirements are intended to assist agencies in establishing management practices that align IT resources with agency missions, goals, programmatic priorities, and statutory requirements; establish government-wide IT management controls that will meet FITARA requirements while providing agencies with the flexibility to adapt to agency processes and unique mission requirements; establish universal roles, responsibilities, and authorities of the agency CIO and other senior agency officials; strengthen the agency CIO's accountability for the agency's IT costs, schedules, performance, and security; strengthen the relationship between agency and bureau CIOs; establish consistent government-wide interpretation of FITARA terms and requirements; and provide appropriate visibility and involvement of the agency CIO in the management and oversight of IT resources to support the implementation of effective cybersecurity policies. In addition to implementing FITARA, the guidance also harmonizes the requirements of FITARA with existing law, primarily the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 and the E-Government Act of 2002. Those laws require OMB to issue management guidance for information technology and electronic government activities across the government, respectively. FITARA also contains provisions that required OMB interpretation before implementation. FITARA provided the framework to refine existing CIO initiatives, mainly the Data Center Optimization Initiative, the Cloud First Policy, the IT Dashboard, and Portfolio Review. On August 1, 2016, OMB released a new Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI) to supersede the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (DCCI) established in 2010. The DCOI requires agencies to develop and report on data center strategies to consolidate inefficient federal IT infrastructure; optimize existing facilities; improve security posture; achieve cost savings; and transition to more efficient infrastructure, such as cloud services and interagency shared services. One of the most significant elements of the DCOI is that, beg inning in February 2017, agencies are prohibited from budgeting funds or committing resources to establish any new data centers or significantly expand existing data centers without approval from the Federal CIO. The DCOI maintains the previous DCCI requirement that agencies increase the use of pooling of storage, network and computer resources, and of on-demand dynamic allocation ("virtualization"). Additionally, agencies will be required to evaluate their options and priorities for the consolidation and closure of existing data centers by transitioning to cloud-based services to the extent possible; interagency shared services or colocated data centers; and optimized data centers within an agency's data center inventory. The initiative also requires that agencies automate the tools used to measure power efficiency and manage their data center infrastructure, as well as classify their data centers as either "tiered" or "nontiered." Tiered data centers are defined as those using the following: a separate physical space for IT infrastructure, an uninterruptible power supply, a dedicated cooling system or zone, and a back-up power generator for prolonged power outages. All other data centers will be considered nontiered data centers. Nontiered data centers are considered less secure than tiered data centers. Under the new DCOI guidance, by the end of FY2018, agencies are required to close at least 25% of their tiered data centers (excluding interagency shared services data centers) and at least 60% of nontiered data centers. The DCOI guidance encourages agencies to prioritize closing those data centers that cannot achieve the required energy consumption optimization targets and/or present security challenges due to age. To measure compliance with the DCOI, agencies are required to report on a quarterly basis inventories of all data center facilities, closure/consolidation plans, and properties of each facility owned, operated, or maintained by or on behalf of the agency; progress toward meeting all optimization metric target values; and evaluation of the costs of operating and maintaining current facilities, to include yearly targets for cost savings and cost avoidance due to consolidation and optimization through FY2018. In 2016 and 2017, GAO made a number of recommendations to OMB and the 24 DCOI agencies to help improve the reporting of data center-related cost savings and to achieve optimization targets. As of March 2018, 74 of these 81 recommendations had not been fully addressed. The May report included information about agencies' progress in three areas: OMB's data center closure targets, OMB's goals for planned savings, and OMB's data center optimization metrics. Despite the DCOI mandate to close a certain percentage of data centers by the end of FY2018, GAO found that the 24 agencies participating in the DCOI reported mixed progress toward achieving that goal. Over half of the agencies reported that they had either already met, or planned to meet, all of their OMB-assigned goals by the deadline, resulting in the closure of 7,221 of the 12,062 centers that agencies reported in August 2017. However, four agencies reported that they do not have plans to meet all of their assigned goals and two agencies are working with OMB to establish revised targets. With regard to agencies' progress in achieving cost savings, 20 agencies reported that they had achieved $1.04 billion in cost savings during FY2016 and FY2017. In addition, agencies' DCOI strategic plans identified an additional $0.58 billion in planned savings for a total of $1.62 billion for FY2016 through FY2018. This total is about $1.12 billion less than OMB's DCOI savings goal of $2.7 billion. This shortfall is due to 12 agencies reporting less in planned cost savings and avoidances in their DCOI strategic plans, as compared to the savings targets established by OMB. Participating agencies reported limited progress against OMB's five targets for server utilization and automated monitoring; energy metering; power usage effectiveness; facility utilization; and virtualization. As of August 2017, only one agency had met four targets, one agency had met three targets, six agencies had met either one or two targets, and 14 agencies reported meeting no targets. Further, most agencies were not planning to meet OMB's FY2018 optimization targets. In addition to providing updated guidance to agencies regarding their data centers, the DCOI has also provided new guidance for cloud investment and shared services adoption. This new guidance complements guidance provided in the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, which was published in February 2011. The strategy instituted the Cloud First policy, requiring agencies to evaluate cloud computing options before making new investments in physical IT infrastructure. It is intended to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing services by federal agencies and, therefore, the pace at which the government may realize the benefits of cloud adoption ( Table 1 ). In April 2016, GAO reported an assessment of how well agencies have incorporated 10 key management elements into their cloud computing service level agreements (SLAs) ( Table 2 ). The SLA is part of a standardized service contract in which particular aspects of the service, such as scope, quality, and responsibilities, are defined and agreed upon between the service provider and the service user.