Survey Says Feds not Tracking Data Center Capacity

Just about a quarter of federal information technology officials say their department has a system in place to track savings from a governmentwide push to shut down and consolidate data centers, according to an

unscientific survey from MeriTalk, a government IT industry group.

The survey was mostly conducted in person during a MeriTalk event and has a margin of error of nearly 8 percent. The survey had 157 total respondents.

About 77 percent of survey respondents said they didn't know how much energy their data centers used and fewer than half said they track key storage metrics.

About 42 percent of respondents said their departments have an incentive to save costs through data center closures.

Outgoing Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra has outlined a plan to close about 800 of the government's roughly 2,100 data centers by 2015, which he's said will save the government $3 billion. More than 100 are slated to be closed by the end of this year.

Kundra's plan has focused on the number of data centers, not the storage volume or energy usage. Agencies have provided very little information about the actual data or carbon footprint of their data center closures.