New CIO at the Helm of the FDCCI Task Force

Klimavicz aims to push shared services and cloud computing as proven means for consolidation and optimization in the public sector.  “Whenever possible, interagency sharing of data centers and their assets increases efficiency across the federal government,” Klimavicz stated in a recent blog post on www.cio.gov. 

The task force will continue to focus on hardware and software utilization.  Sharing these assets across an agency, department or the federal government can allow the hosting organization to charge for usage, while eliminating IT duplication and creating standardization across the agency.

Klimavicz is also a supporter of cloud computing.  As former CIO at NOAA, he saw first-hand the benefits of consolidating 19 different e-mail systems onto a single cloud platform.  The move freed up floor space across NOAA data centers. 

The Task Force will also work to establish benchmarks and metrics to measure progress toward core data center optimization. 

I’m curious to see if Klimavicz will bring more visibility to data center consolidation and optimization progress.   Since becoming part of the PortfolioStat process in 2013, few statistics are available to the public regarding data center optimization progress.   Counts of core vs. non-core data centers by agency have not been published, nor have the final criteria for agencies to use to select their core data centers.  

Agencies continue to say that they are pursuing data center optimization and consolidation.  However without data to support efforts, it’s difficult for the public to assess progress or accomplishments.