A Congressional Research Service report found that the Defense Department’s growing demand for data center services may hold back government-wide efforts to cut energy costs, Federal Times reports.The CRS report said that the Pentagon’s energy cost savings estimate does not include upfront costs needed to shut down or consolidate data centers, according to Nicole Blake Johnson’s article.
Through its strategy to move to cloud computing, the Pentagon estimates it could save $58 million per year from 2013 to 2018.
The department also plans to eliminate 428 data centers from its current number of 772 by 2015.
CRS ound that there is no accurate energy use data available for most data centers, making it hard to track savings and establish baseline measurements of energy costs, Johnson reported.
Citing Office of Management and Budget data, Johnson wrote the department has more than twice as many data centers as any other agency.
However, CRS also found the Defense Department uses 63 percent of all energy consumed by federal buildings and facilities.
