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The following content is from an older version of this website, and may not display correctly. Folllowing earlier reports stating its data centers do not meet industry standards, the US state of Minnesota said it wants to consolidate 36 data centers into less than five collocation operations in less than five years.
Outgoing Minnesota CIO Gopal Khanna, who will leave his post in December, and Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson said state agencies had been given a directive to move and collocate computer systems to a third-party data center service.
According to a government release, the third-party data center will house Minnesota's "most highly critical" computer systems within two years. These account for 40% of the state government's executive branch business applications.
"The rest of the state's systems will move within five years to collocation space in several upgraded state facilities," the release said.
Khanna said the move was aimed at reducing data center costs, increasing efficiency, reducing risks (as the release said no state facilities currently meet necessary industry standards) and improve agility and performance, especially in regards to interoperability.
"This important business decision for the state represents a cost-effective way to lower our risks while minimizing investment and move costs," Khanna said.
"Doing it together provides economies of scale and efficiencies no agency can realise on its own."
The government has already said it will move 35,000 of its staff on to web-based applications for its email, instant messaging and video conferencing and SharePoint collaboration.