In the News

Joe Uchill

Fewer than one in four agencies are on track to meet federally mandated data center efficiency, cost and security goals by the end of the program to update them, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

The report, released Wednesday, said 17 of the 22 agencies are not planning to meet their Office of Management and Budget target by the end of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) in October, 2018.

FITARA aims to consolidate and optimize data centers, reducing cost and bolstering security. But estimates on the time frame it would take to consolidate the centers were hampered by faulty estimates of how many data centers there actually were. Before the bill passed, the House was told there were 1,100 centers. After, as actual numbers rolled in, that number turned out to be off by a factor of ten.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Virg.) said that the GAO report, which suggests expanding the deadline for data center retooling, proves that Congress should pass the FITARA enhancement act which would do just that. Connolly sponsored that bill with Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and was an original sponsor of FITARA.

"These findings confirm why it is so important Congress pass the FITARA Enhancement Act. We cannot allow agencies to run out the clock on data center optimization goals and potentially leave billions of dollars in savings that can be reinvested in IT modernization," said Connolly in a statement.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/349609-fewer-than-1-4-agencies-will-meet-data-center-consolidation-goals