Feds@Work: NASA Deputy CIO Takes Data Centers Down to Size

NASA's deputy CIO Deborah Diaz doesn't just talk about data center consolidation. She's rolling up her sleeves and making it happen at the space agency. Since Diaz joined NASA in 2009, she's been responsible for shrinking the number of data centers from 79 to 54 and eventually to 22, driven by the Obama administration's effort to eliminate excessive and duplicative services.

Diaz is part of the 21st century workforce at NASA dedicated to reshaping a changing agency, using technology to make it better and finding new ways of working with its $17.8 billion budget for fiscal 2012, $648 million less than requested. The lessons learned from her work could be used by other agencies, including how to adapt a GIS floor plan to identify hot spots and improve energy efficiency and its work on data center consolidation. She's already giving other agencies pointers on what NASA has learned in its work...