Earlier this week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order for a major overhaul of the state government’s entire IT infrastructure, including aggressive reduction targets for IT energy use and data center floor space.

The order requires each state agency to reduce energy consumption of its IT and telecom infrastructure by 10 percent by July of this year, 20 percent by July 2011 and 30 percent by July 2012. Along with energy use, agencies will be required to reduce the size of their data center floors by 25 percent by July 2010, and by 50 percent by July 2011.

A POTENTIAL “AVALANCHE”
The new law represents a widening of an ongoing data center consolidation effort by the state’s Office of Technology Services (OTech), which provides IT services to many government agencies throughout the state. The office is in the process of consolidating its infrastructure from two data centers and a multitude of IT closets under one roof.

One of the two data centers the office currently runs is being remodeled to be consolidated into and a state employee who is working on the consolidation project says the governor’s new order may result in the new facility having to host a lot more equipment than has been planned so far.

 “We don’t know if we can handle the avalanche of equipment that may potentially come in our direction from the rest of the state,” said Rainer Schwertschkow, one of OTech’s data center managers, explaining that for many of the state agencies a way to comply with the order would be to use OTech’s colocation or managed services.

“If we can house them, yes we will. If we cannot house them, then other solutions will have to be found.  This proclamation from the governor is so new that people even here at this data center were taken by surprise.”

The document requires that all server rooms operated by state agencies be closed by June 2013 and that all applications be transferred onto infrastructure hosted in Tier III data centers. Agencies will also be required to migrate from networks they are currently using to the state’s own California Government Network by July 2010.

One of OTech’s two data centers is scheduled to close in the Summer. Most equipment it currently supports will be transferred to the remodeled 40,000 square foot facility and the rest will be moved to a 6,500 square foot colocation space in Vacaville, Calif.

Schwertzkow was not sure on Thursday whether his team would be required to reduce data center floor area of the remodeled facility to comply with the governor’s new mandate.

RESTRUCTURE OF IT OVERSIGHT
The order commits the state’s entire government to using a “common technology platform and shared services” and gives state CIO Teri Takai authority over all IT infrastructure used by state agencies, including data centers, telecom networks, data center services, hosting of all internal and public-facing applications as well as shared services such as email and directory.

According to the document’s language, the state government spends more than $3 billion on IT and telecommunications every year and IT equipment uses 40 percent of total electricity consumed in offices.

The new law aims to tighten fiscal oversight of the state’s IT operations by requiring all agencies to submit detailed reports of their IT costs to the state CIO’s office. Each state agency will also have to appoint its own CIO and its own Information Security Officer.

Agency CIO’s will be responsible for meeting the governor’s energy use and data center floor area reduction targets, reporting on a quarterly basis to the state CIO. Agencies that do not comply will lose their IT purchasing authority or see it reduced.