Feds Search for Efficiency

Federal government agencies are under constant pressure tokeep costs down and run processes more efficiently, so many are deploying ITinitiatives to help deliver cost-effective operations that are sure to pleasetaxpayers.

?The federal government is challenged by significant budgetconstraints that will necessarily impact the role of IT in almost everyagency,? says Andrea Di Maio, vice president and distinguished analyst atresearch firm Gartner, who covers IT in the government.

?This is similar to what happened in some of the states,such as Florida and California, after 2008, and to what is likely to happen,albeit with greater severity, in Europe as a consequence of the situation withsovereign debts,? he says. ?IT will have to demonstrably contribute to increasingproductivity and to ensuring the sustainability of government services andoperations.?

At the same time, Di Maio adds, IT needs to remainaffordable, so cost optimization will be essential. This can be achievedthrough better acquisition and delivery models, as well as tighter project andrisk management.

?This is a very different scenario than the ones we haveseen in the past, where the focus was either on reducing IT costs or investingin IT to reduce business costs,? he says. ?The future is about doing both atthe same time.?

 

EPA?s Virtualization Efforts

Some federal agencies, such as the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency, have launched virtualization efforts to improve ITefficiency. The EPA is a physically decentralized organization with 25 majorfacilities, including its headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area, 10regional offices and 13 major research centers.

The agency operates 78 data centers and server rooms locatedin 66 buildings across 48 cities in 31 states and territories. Since 2007, theEPA has taken a series of ?optimization initiatives? to consolidate datacenters, use industry best-management practices and deploy virtualizationacross its IT infrastructure.

?Virtualization is a key component of the EPA?s effort toreduce total server count by almost 50 percent,? says David Updike, actingdirector of the EPA?s National Computer Center. ?Virtualization provides thefoundation for resource sharing and consolidation within server rooms andacross data centers.?

In 2009, the EPA began migrating its x86-64 servers tovirtualized platforms, including VMware, Dell servers and a variety of storageplatforms, such as HP 3PAR, EMC and EqualLogic. ?These virtualization effortsare paired with infrastructure-refresh efforts so they can be financed withinexisting operating budgets to maximize return on investment,? Updike says.

The EPA has achieved substantial gains in virtualization.Nine percent of its physical servers are virtual machine hosts, and 32 percentof its servers are virtual machines. By 2015, the agency plans to increasevirtual hosts to 30 percent of physical machines, with 60 percent of itsservers operating as virtual machines.

Another key element of the consolidation effort is networkoptimization, because bandwidth is a critical risk factor for server migration,Updike says. The agency?s network optimization project involved moving its WANand Internet access services?provided via a U.S. General ServicesAdministration (GSA) contract with Networx?to Networx?s commercial cloud services.The EPA completed the initial transition in March 2011, and it continues toexpand the use of cloud services provided under the contract.