Quest Software, DLT and NetApp recently sponsored a panel discussion in Washington to discuss data center consolidation and cloud computing. The panel participants were progressive well-respected IT leaders from different federal agencies that had all launched consolidation projects. The speakers reported that most projects would take several years and acknowledged that consolidations were really evolutionary transformations to achieve long term objectives. The ultimate goal for each agency is to have no more than 5 major production sites with total capacity to serve both the current and future needs. Even after consolidating and increasing utilization rates, the plans predicted there would be excess IT capacity – theoretically this capacity could be “reallocated” to other entities.

After attending the well put together DLT, NetApp, and Quest Software sponsored IT Consolidation Executive Forum I realized how important of a topic this is to our public sector agencies including the State and local sector. At many of these types’ forums and shows, sometimes, IT Consolidation doesn’t seem too relevant. But given the state of data growth, many who attended are planning on implementing data centers which use the technologies included with virtualization and IT consolidation. Cindy Cassil exemplified this in her presentation by giving specific examples of the implementation at Department of State and showing how it was accepted by her boss immediately because it showed how they could standardize and save money. She also pointed out the need for putting together the right team, she mentioned the NetApp engineers, with the right skills to make sure that everything was put into place correctly.