Schwarzenegger Calls For Data Centers To Reduce Energy Usage 30% By 2012

from the come-with-me-if-you-want-to-live dept

The Californian government is trying to halve IT expenses, from $3 billion to $1.5 billion. To do so, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order to cut energy usage from IT operations by 30% by July 2012 and to consolidate data center space by 50% a year earlier than that. The order also sets goals to increase transparency in IT spending, to standardize IT policies and to develop shared services that are currently spread out over several state agencies.

A few years ago, Schwarzenegger created a cabinet-level agency with authority over statewide IT policy, naming Teri Takai as state CIO. So with this mandate to drastically cut IT expenses, Takai will be shifting all mission-critical and public-facing applications to a new Tier III data center before this September. The state will also close all server rooms housing non-network equipment by June 2013. All existing network services plan to be migrated to a unified California Government Network by July 2010 as well. And in April, state agencies will submit quarterly reports to Takai and start documenting progress towards these goals on a public website.

For all the IT gurus out there, do these measures sound feasible? Are there opportunities for California to become even more efficient with its IT spending? Will the IT spending transparency really mean anything? Submit your comments, we'll keep track of these developments in the future.