Several agencies of the US federal government have identified more than 100 data centers that either have been shut down in 2011 or are slated for closure by the end of the year. Closing of the total of 137 data centers on the list is part of a government-wide data center consolidation initiative White House CIO Vivek Kundra kicked off in August 2009.

The White House released the list of facilities about eight months after the deadline Kundra set for all agencies to put together final consolidation plans in March 2010. The deadline was 30 August 2010. Data centers on the list are those of only 16 of the hundreds of agencies that make up the US government.

In a presentation on progress made so far on an overall IT reform initiative during a White House forum on 27 April, Kundra said implementation plans to shut down 800 federal data centers by 2015 had been completed.

In December 2010, Kundra’s office released a 25-point implementation plan to reform the way the federal government managed IT. Detailed implementation plans to consolidate at least 800 agency data centers was the first action item on the plan.

Download Kundra’s 25-point implementation plan for federal IT reform here

So far this year, federal agencies have closed 39 data centers, with 98 more facilities identified for closure by the year’s end. Out of all agencies, the Department of Defense will have closed the biggest number of data centers: 52, some of which have already been closed.

Download the list of data centers closed so far and ones targeted for closure by the end of 2011 here

The DoD is followed by the Department of the Interior, which has 18 data centers on the list. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is next, but most of its 14 data centers on the list have already been closed.

Most of the data centers on the list of 800-plus facilities slated for closure by the end of 2015 are DoD facilities. The department is expected to shut down 426 of its 700-plus data centers within the next four-to-five years.

The government-wide consolidation initiative is expected to trim substantially the government’s cost of doing business. Report on a recent study conducted by research firm MeriTalk and storage vendor NetApp estimated the cost-reduction opportunity to be about US$18.8bn annually.

An issue that still persists is lack of a common definition for what constitutes a data center among agencies, the survey discovered. Mark Weber, US public sector president at NetApp, said the issue may not necessarily be a technical one.

"People are using a loosely defined definition of data center because they want to get credit for consolidation," he said.

Definitions include any room larger than 1,000 sq ft that houses multiple servers, any room larger than 500 sq ft dedicated to data processing and meets the requirements for one of the Uptime Institute’s four tier definitions. Some agencies consider any room devoted to servers (including rooms less than 200 sq ft in size) a data center.

Another issue is not all agencies know how much they will need to spend on consolidation. Of the ones that do, not all can say with certainty they have the funds necessary.

According to the MeriTalk/NetApp report, only 41% of agencies have a clear picture of the resources required to consolidate their data centers. Only 60% of the ones that knew what it would take said they could afford it.