The U.S. federal government’s General Accounting Office recently issued an estimate that raised many eyebrows: The government now maintains at least 11,500 data centers, or 2,000 more than originally estimated 2 years ago.
Readers may recall that, at that time, the government announced an effort to consolidate its data centers, cutting the number by half. The apparent growth in data centers, despite massive cutbacks and consolidations, points to the constant shifting of technology resources in large organizations, in which a savings in one area is cancelled out by new initiatives and spending in another.
The bottom line is there will always be a need for data centers in one form or another, well into the foreseeable future. The challenge is to employ the latest strategies and technologies to run as lean and light as possible. To stay on top of all the trends, subscribe to Database Trends and Applications magazine.