Army officials met Dec. 13 for the first in a series of meetings on its strategy to more aggressively consolidate data centers. Not only does the Army claim 200, or 25 percent, of the 800 federal data centers the Office of Management and Budget identified as eligible for consolidation by fiscal 2015, it just lost a year on its timeline, according to Lt. Gen. Susan Lawrence, the Army chief information officer/G6.

"The secretary had given us until 2015. He just asked us to do it by 2014," said Lawrence Dec. 14 while keynoting an AFCEA NOVA Army IT day.

The original goal was to shut down 185 Army data centers by fiscal 2015 and as part of the effort it plans to cut its application portfolio in half, said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, in a recorded address played at the event. The video was created for Army leadership's aforementioned data center "deep-dive" meeting Dec. 13, said Lawrence.

Consolidation is also forcing Army to move equipment from other locations into a more coherent structure, said Rick Davis, director of operations Army Network Enterprise Technology Command. "It forces us to take a look at portfolios, to find other ways to garner cost savings."

Army has at least 9,000 applications on more than 24,000 servers, said Chiarelli, who added it hasn't accounted for many of them. "If I had to guess, I'd say we probably have double that out there today," said Chiarelli.

As data centers and applications are closed or consolidated, Army will also stem its ability to purchase replacement technology. Lawrence said she signed and will soon release a policy letter "to limit some of the ability to procure" these IT assets, so they don't pop up again elsewhere.

The success of consolidation efforts is dependent on cultural changes, said Lawrence. The Army is accustomed to 2- or 3-year assignments, but data center consolidation will be completed on the watch of today's Army and it will have to live with how well it did. "This is your legacy, you're responsible for it," said Lawrence.

Army will also have to culturally adjust to an era of constriction and austerity. "We have a culture of getting whatever we ask for," said Lawrence, but sometimes what it wants isn't really what it needs. "That's what we have to look at as leaders."

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