Is California's data center consolidation plan feasible?

By Mark Fontecchio, on SearchDataCenter.com

When IT pros talk about California's planned data center consolidation, they often use the word aggressive to describe the timeline. Indeed, some think the timeline is so aggressive that it could render the consolidation project impossible.

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"When you're talking about a $3 billion IT budget, you can get significant savings," said Brian Lillie, the CIO of Equinix, a data center colocation company. "There is probably a lot of low-hanging fruit."

Massive data center consolidation -- by state fiat
Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger issued an executive order calling for a massive consolidation of the state's data centers and servers. The mandate is, by July of 2010, to reduce the total amount of data center square footage used by state agencies by 25% and, by July 2011, to reduce square footage by 50%. The order also mandates that by 2012 IT energy use be cut by 30%.

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"I think their goals to reduce their footprint and energy consumption are doable," said Jeff Paschke, a senior data center analyst at Tier1 Research. "The big question is the timeline. It doesn't seem too realistic, especially if you look at the track record of other states' data center consolidation efforts."