It’s rewarding to see the just-published U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Guide to Energy Efficient Data Centers echo much of the advice I have shared with you these few months, albeit with different words: • Benchmark existing facilities - discovery of current state can be assisted with automated tools

When citizens and their political leaders are shivering about the federal deficit, Government IT managers are catching cold. With the right approaches to the many challenges, the path to IT Consolidation can be cleared to resolve the chill (i.e. save money).

Venturing down the IT consolidation path can be a frustrating and bewildering experience, and one that is fraught with risk for public sector leaders. As the saying goes – no one ever got fired for NOT starting an IT project – but plenty of people have gotten dinged for IT projects that have gone awry. Project risk, cost pressures, byzantine contracting rules, and other challenges can make even the most forward looking leader unsure about how to proceed. Here are some items to think about as your organization ventures down the IT consolidation path.

In the face of budget cuts, high IT infrastructure replacement and maintenance costs, growing energy use, data proliferation, and user demands have all created incentive to consolidate IT in the Federal Government.

Today, the primary drivers of data center consolidation are space, power and cooling constraints.  New computing paradigms such as smarter energy management hardware and software technologies, virtualization and compute and storage clouds provide solutions to these challenges and enable the opportunity for rapid data center consolidation.  Data center consolidation has significant implications for system integrators and data center service providers.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) that delineates a strategy focusing on five mission priority areas for the homeland security enterprise. “Mission one is preventing terrorism and enhancing the security of the country.

The Center is pleased to announce the publication of the Fall/Winter 2010 The Business of Government