Army Streamlining Information Facilities

The U.S. Army is freezing some information technology acquisitions and cutting back on existing facilities for more efficient data flow. These efforts are coupled with a data center inventory designed to allow the service greater flexibility in networking. Maj. Gen. Mark Bowman, USA, director of architecture, operations, networks, and space, Army CIO/G-6, explained to the MILCOM 2010 luncheon audience that the Army has placed a moratorium on the acquisition of servers. Too many servers were being purchased without regard to need, and the existing servers were being used at only about 33 percent capacity. While servers are frozen, Army data centers are melting away. First, the Army began to inventory just how many data centers it had, Gen. Bowman related. The count began at about 160, and it now is up to 279 and still counting. Once the Army has its arms around its data center infrastructure, it will begin reducing their number. The goal is to reduce that number by 75 percent by 2015 on the way to a final tally of less than 10 data centers. Gen. Bowman explained that this reduction will be conducted methodically rather than dramatically. This will prevent some data center adherents from offering legitimate arguments against the reductions. The Defense Information Systems Agency, which is advising the Army on this effort, will pick up some of the data center functions.