The IT Reform Agenda: 'Cloud-first' and Mainstreaming of Open Source

I attended the latest briefing at the White House complex, where Federal CIO Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients, and other Executive Branch officials reported on implementation of the Administration’s IT Reform Agenda.

As I've previously written , the IT reform agenda is an aggressive effort to refocus the more than $80 billion spent on technology infrastructure by the Federal government. Among the steps announced yesterday is that 137 federal data centers will close by the end of the year. (Kundra reported that 39 have already closed.) Almost one-third of the closures – 52 – will occur at the Department of Defense. Fifteen (15) other agencies will see data center cutbacks, too, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, Energy, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Agriculture, Justice, the and Veterans Affairs, as well as NASA, USAID, and General Services Administration.

That's quite a down payment toward the Administration's stated goal of eliminating 800 of the U.S. government’s more than 2,000 data centers by 2015.

Among other highlights of the briefing: Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman focused on how his department is “aggressively” engaged in cloud use and adoption; Deputy USDA Secretary Kathleen Merrigan described efforts to seriously pare down its number of data centers; VA's Roger Baker discussed the administration's plans to eliminate or revise underperforming IT projects; and DHS CIO Richard Spires spoke of efforts to promote IT best practices.