Federal CIO begins selling huge IT consolidation plan

Federal CIO Kundra's plan is aimed at focusing CIOs on delivering services to citizens, not on technology, say industry executives. James Kegley

The federal government's top technology executive has developed a grand plan to centralize information technology services for all non-Defense Department agencies, as detailed deep in President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget and briefed to IT industry officials this week.

The consolidation plan, as outlined in the budget in a section titled "Special Topics," envisions the selection of central IT service providers in civilian agencies, strongly backs remote or cloud computing, calls for consolidation of the 1,100 data centers throughout government and pushes the use of so-called federal eMalls to purchase computer hardware.

The plan, devised under the supervision of Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, is "brilliant" because it will relieve federal CIOs of the burden of being chief computer officers and allow them to focus on using IT to deliver services to citizens, said Jeff Koch, an associate partner in IBM's strategy and change practice who worked on electronic government initiatives in the Office of Management and Budget during the Bush administration.

In a White House briefing to IT industry officials on Monday, Kundra emphasized that IT development "must engineer solutions from the citizens' perspective," according to a copy of his briefing slides obtained by Nextgov.

Koch said Kundra doesn't spend time thinking about technologies, such as next-generation computer chips, because he views IT as a strategic asset. The consolidation plan will enable CIOs at civilian agencies to focus on their missions rather than computer hardware and e-mail systems. "No one really cares about who provides their desktop computer or hardware, as long as it works," Koch said.

Grand plans that involve multiple departments or agencies can die because of a lack of funding, but Kundra has asked for a separate funding line , a $50 million fund in OMB's planned fiscal 2011 budget. OMB plans to use the money for "rapid development and governmentwide deployment of services and solutions . . . [for] a more integrated, efficient and effective use of information technology in the federal government," budget documents said.

Olga Grkavac, executive vice president for the public sector at TechAmerica, an association of 1,500 technology companies, said she expects the consolidation effort will result in the selection of lead agencies to provide shared IT services across the civilian sector in areas such as financial and records management and data center operations.

The approach will create efficiencies and economies of scale and provide better delivery of services, Grkavac added.

One way to gain efficiencies is through the use of cloud, or remote, computing resources. Kundra told industry in his briefing that "all new and existing major [IT] investments must consider [or] review cloud computing options."

Purchase of commodity hardware and software also needs to be consolidated, the budget said, and called for increased use of eMalls to reduce costs, improve controls and allow better analysis of such purchases to fine-tune sourcing policies. Don Brown, chief executive officer of Partnet Inc., which developed DoD eMall for the Defense Logistics Agency, called Kundra's plan the "Amazon.com approach to federal purchasing." DoD eMall saves its customers about 26 percent on the purchase of everything from paperclips to computers, he added.

The consolidation of data centers, push for cloud computing and the eMalls will require an investment in broadband circuits, and the savings from the consolidation will more than offset the increased bandwidth costs, said Jerry Edgerton, president of government markets at Core 180 Inc., a telecommunications provider.

Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting, said he has concerns about the shared services approach to IT when it has become so intertwined with the core missions of civilian agencies, except for the purchase of commodity hardware and softweare.

Robert Woods, president of Topside Consulting and a former commissioner of the Federal Technology Service at General Services Administration, disagreed. Civilian agencies need to use IT to focus on the operational side of their missions, not hardware or running data centers, he said.