Medicare agency to launch major contracting initiative

CMS' virtual data center initiative is part of a governmentwide push to transition to more efficient information innovation hosting, which includes consolidating traditional data centers and moving more government operations into public and private computer clouds.

The government $3 billion over five years

Administration officials estimate consolidating federal data centers will save the government $3 billion over five years and that the transition to cloud computing in the long run will save the government $5 billion annually.