Instead of building its new billion-dollar enterprise data center, NASA has decided to make major changes to its data-center strategy.
NASA said it was postponing the release of a long-awaited request for proposal for the new data center in light of new Office of Management and Budget requirements regarding cloud computing, green IT, virtualization and federal data-center consolidation guidance.
NASA intends to create a data center consolidation plan to include data-center architecture and full enterprise assessment, which will allow the agency to design an infrastructure strategy to address all business requirements while taking advantage of opportunities to reduce energy costs and use innovations like cloud computing. The new plan is expected to be ready by fall 2010.
The announcement came on the same day Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra sent out a data-center consolidation memo to agency CIOs. The memo instructed agencies to develop data center consolidation plans and incorporate them into 2012 fiscal budget plans by the end of August after first carrying out an assessment of their current data center infrastructures.
