No company, organization or government can function without basic IT infrastructure services in the 21st century. Deploying and managing this infrastructure affordably has become a priority. When it comes to government technology services in particular, saving money, whether in the form of data center consolidation, cloud migration or through big data strategies, is essential. This was recently highlighted In Nebraska, where the state government has announced a plan to save around $5.3 million in IT costs over the next 10 years, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.
Data center consolidation benefits states
One of the best ways state governments can save money on IT infrastructure is through the consolidation of services and data whenever possible, and this is exactly how Nebraska plans to achieve its projected savings.
"We're decentralized, and that inherently creates waste," Ed Toner, the state's chief information officer, told the Star.
Specifically, Toner was referring to data that was scattered across government servers in the state of Nebraska. The initiative to amend this technically began several years ago, but has been slow out of the gates. Toner's decision appears to be aimed at expediting the process.
A significant chunk of the savings will come in the form of data center consolidation, as the new CIO intends to move data stored on disparate servers to two data centers, located in Omaha and Lincoln respectively. By early 2016, motor vehicle data and court data from 90 counties in the state will be shifted from remote servers to the state's data storage system. Other departments that may move their data include the Departments of Revenue, Labor, Corrections, and Health and Human Services.
Since the data consolidation efforts began, the state has saved $71,650, according to the Star. One of the main sources of future savings will be in reducing duplicative spending on software, which can now be purchased once and used across all state agencies.
Data center consolidation a growing trend
Data center consolidation is becoming an important cost-saving and efficiency-enhancing method employed by federal, state and local governments; it saves energy and money, and simplifies the processes of overseeing data that would otherwise be scattered across various servers.
A recent example of how data center consolidation was employed at the federal level comes in the form of the transportation security administration. In an effort to reduce IT infrastructure costs, the TSA will be migrating data and services to the department of Homeland Security's servers throughout 2015.
As government IT infrastructure continues to evolve, management over these resources must also evolve. This is what appears to be happening at the TSA, and now, in the state of Nebraska as well.