Most agencies submitted final plans last month for consolidating the government's massive inventory of data centers.

The plans, aimed at reducing data center costs and energy consumption, are tied to the 2012 budget and will be reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration. OMB will approve the plans by Dec. 31.

"We're asking them [agencies] to take an aggressive posture, but also be realistic," said Richard Spires, chief information officer for the Homeland Security Department. "We recognize it will take multiple years."

Spires was asked to lead the initiative, along with former Treasury Department chief information officer Michael Duffy.

Following a Feb. 26 memo from federal CIO Vivek Kundra, agencies submitted an initial inventory of their data centers in April. Agencies later developed plans to identify opportunities for consolidation or areas where server virtualization and cloud computing were applicable. The goal: Consolidate more than 1,100 data centers across the federal government.

The memo echoes an executive order President Obama signed Oct. 5, requiring agencies to measure greenhouse gas emissions and set targets for reduction. The consolidation initiative also aligns with the government's push to dispose of excess property such as office space, warehouses, laboratories and data centers.

"We made it very clear in that executive order that the administration is moving forward with its net-zero growth policy when it comes to data centers," Kundra said during an interview with Federal News Radio. "So it's going to take not just CIOs across the federal government, but it's going to take [chief financial officers] and strategic sustainability officers to really move this initiative forward."

A team of data center experts from across the government reviewed draft plans and provided feedback, said Spires, who wouldn't give specifics about the team's makeup. The final plans will undergo a similar vetting process, and agencies will report on their progress at the end of each fiscal quarter, starting in 2011.

Spires said the goal is to create optimized plans for each agency. "We were very careful not to state a federalwide mandate."

For example, consolidation efforts at DHS — which is highly decentralized — will differ from plans at the Social Security Administration.

Spires said DHS will offer e-mail services through a private cloud. The department has been working since about 2006 to consolidate 24 data centers down to two. It has shuttered six data centers and is on track to meet its goal by 2014, Spires said. It will use two modernized data centers now operating at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and in southern Virginia.

OMB would not release information about the number of data centers within each agency, but across the government that number nearly tripled between 1998 and 2009, from 432 to more than 1,100.

In the past, the focus was not as specific and involved infrastructure consolidation, said Norm Lorenz, director of global public sector for Grant Thornton LLP.

Improved technology has changed that.

The expectation is that the number of data centers will fall significantly in the next three to five years. It's a goal that Lorenz thinks is achievable.

"This has been done in the private sector," said Lorenz, a former chief technology officer at OMB. "This is not something we have to guess at."

Contractors' role

How will the consolidation affect the private sector?

It could mean a short-term boost in work for companies helping the government implement its plans, but the long-term goal is to curb costs, said Jay Owen, vice president of sales for APC by Schneider Electric.

The company has looked at new ways of cooling data centers. Owen said Schneider's products allow for the high density in consolidated facilities. The company has a modular system that keeps efficiency high while new data centers are being populated.

There is the possibility that agencies will receive funding to build larger, more efficient data centers.

"We are asking for return on investment, recognizing that there's going to have to be an upfront investment," Spires said.

GAO study

At the request of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the Government Accountability Office is conducting a report to determine how many federal data centers exist, to describe government's efforts to consolidate and modernize data centers, and to outline the challenges agencies face. The report will also look at best practices from states that have consolidated and modernized data centers.

GAO is in the process of selecting agencies to include in the report but said DHS and the Treasury Department likely will be selected.

GAO will assess agency plans, performance measures, projected milestones and areas for saving costs, said David Powner, director of IT management issues at GAO.

"What it's really about is having a date when the consolidation and savings to the government will occur," Powner said.