According to this post at Gov Loop, the Obama administration's drive to consolidate federal data centers has one of its biggest targets in USDA, going from 46 data centers now to 5 in the future. (Only DHS has a bigger percentage drop.) The large number of data centers is a reflection of the decentralized nature of the department, which I've referred to in the past. The history of USDA is the development of individual agencies, each doing business its own way, and each resisting efforts by the departmental offices to consolidate.
When I joined ASCS, we had data processing centers in New Orleans, Kansas City, and Minneapolis. In the 70's the department took over the mainframes and the Minneapolis office was closed. But today, FSA uses centers in New Orleans, Kansas City, and St. Louis, having picked up the latter from the 1994 reorg with FmHA. I say "uses", because the centers are run by the department, though last I knew FSA had programmers in both KC and St. Louis. Congresspeople tend to resist closures, so whether the new Tea Partiers can overcome that chauvinism and the Obama administration can enforce its ideas will be interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment