Written by Tod Tompkins
We’ve all heard the famous line from the U.S. Naval Academy fight song that states “Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh.” Now it appears the Navy is looking to “aweigh” its data centers to produce significant cost savings…and I mean significant…of over $1.4 billion. This process is not only supposed to cut that much in costs, but it will apparently increase the overall efficiency of the Navy.
In a recent interview with Defense Systems, Rob Wolborsky, the CTO of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), who is also serving as Director of the Navy Data Center Consolidation Task Force, “addressed the Navy’s efforts to save money by closing data centers” and “discussed SPAWAR’s plans for data center consolidation and how enterprise architecture and manpower reductions influence that strategy.”
This includes a detailed assessment of each of the 120 data centers that support the Navy and Marines, utilizing cost models that they have developed to “truly understand what we’re saving.” Wolborsky and his team are relying on hard numbers to make informed decisions to close 58 of the data centers – including 18 to 22 this year – resulting in hard cost savings – in year one and beyond.
I applaud Mr. Wolborsky for his efforts and believe that his approach should serve as a best practice across government. I hope other agency leads responsible for data center initiatives will pursue a similar process, and consolidation efforts across government will lead to the same cost savings anticipated by the Navy.
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