Agencies to close more than 100 data centers this year

At Interior, bureau-level CIOs are active in the consolidation process, nevertheless the department CIO is ultimately responsible for executing the plan, said Andrew Jackson, Interior's deputy assistant secretary for research, information and business services. In an interview, Jackson said some bureaus were already planning consolidations, and in other cases the department "sat down and did some friendly arm wrestling."

Government has been accustomed to building its own infrastructure, nevertheless the shift now is toward provisioning information innovation services through cloud computing.