The next step of California's IT consolidation will significantly reduce energy consumption and floor space -- in the process saving the state $1.4 billion. The executive order signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, Feb. 9, sets a target date of June 2013 for individual agencies to shutter their server rooms, and mandates that energy consumption is slashed 30 percent by 2012 and data center square footage is cut 50 percent by mid-2011.
The $1.4 billion in savings and cost avoidance that will be realized from those reductions, when added to $1.5 billion saved through the Governor's Reorganization Plan that centralized statewide IT services under the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), means that IT consolidation will save the state $2.9 billion through fiscal 2014, according to California Chief Deputy CIO Adrian Farley.
"Through the closure of the Cannery data center [in Sacramento] this year, we'll get to the 25 percent [floor reduction] target, but through consolidation of agency data centers and moving the mission-critical applications to Tier 3 data centers, that'll get the rest of the way," he said Thursday.
The executive order gives the OCIO the authority to approve appointees to agency-level CIO positions and requires the agencies to annually report projected and actual expenditures for IT and telecommunications, sets reporting standards for information security incidents, and defines firm timelines for enterprise transitions, including a statewide e-mail migration (June 2011) and a shared e-mail security and encryption (June 2010). Later this year the OCIO will begin moving agencies' mission-critical and public-facing applications to a hosted environment in a Tier 3 data center.
"I think the most significant element [of the executive order] is that it establishes really firm deadlines to accomplish consolidation," Farley said. "The rest are levers to achieve the firm deadlines -- whether it's the authority to appoint agency CIOs or to address issues like the ability for agencies to do or purchase IT."
