The US Air Force's massive data center consolidation project is approaching completion. The initiative is currently in Phase IV of the five-phase plan, according to a report by Defense Systems.

The ongoing phase is setting up an automation system for on-demand server provisioning. This phase is aiming at shrinking the time and effort it normally takes to provision servers.

Doulas Babb, a chief IT systems architect at the base, told Defense Systems that it had been difficult to go through the defense department's traditional lengthy process for server provisioning. "Now we can provision a server in less than an hour," he said.

The Air Force's data center consolidation project at Hill Air Force Base in Utah started in 2007. Its goal was to address issues like unstable networks, non-compliance with federal IT mandates, poor integration and redundant and ineffective technologies.

Babb said the project was driven by focus on services, rather than technology that delivers them. "Hill had lots of technology and no real integrated solutions," he said. "Our focus was on the actual services we deliver and not the technology that performs them."