State CIOs Say Budget, Energy Crises Are Forcing Green Initiatives

Rising energy costs and looming budget crises have made consolidation and green technology initiatives top priorities for state CIOs in fiscal 2009, creating a potential boom for solution providers that can capitalize on the trends.

State CIOs attending the NASCIO 2008 annual conference in Milwaukee said consolidation and the expected savings in infrastructure and energy costs was their biggest priority for 2009. In an interactive poll of the 44 CIOs at the event, 46 percent said their top IT initiative for fiscal 2009 is consolidation, far outdistancing legacy software replacement, which came in second with 27 percent of the CIOs voting it their top priority.

Brian Rawson, chief technology officer for Texas, said his state is about 18 months into an 89-month consolidation plan. Prior to the consolidation efforts, Texas had more than 5,300 servers, 16 mainframes and 31 data centers. As a result of the consolidation plan, Texas will reduce the number of data centers from 31 down to two, he said.

"We sold the consolidation plan on savings, but we will sustain it on service delivery," Rawson said.

What's more, the rush to server consolidation among the states is seen as part of a broader green initiative that CIOs view as helping to drastically reduce energy costs, particularly in the data center environment.

CIOs noted that green technology is no longer a fad or a political ploy. Ken Theis, Michigan's CIO, said that CIOs need to take a leadership role in pushing green technology and he even suggested that states appoint chief energy or "greening" officers. "We are at a crossroads," he said. "Green technology is something that is critical now but it is soon to be a mandate."

As part of Michigan's consolidation and green technology initiatives, Theis said the state has focused on peripherals as well as server consolidation. "One of the things we did was have networked multifunction printers," he said. "We were able to actually remove 8,000 disparate fax machines and printers from the system. Why do [consolidation]? Budgets are going to get tighter and energy costs are going to get higher. If we don't get in front of it today, it's going to take us along for the ride."

Added Peggy Ward, Virginia's CIO: "We are in a financial crisis as well as an energy crisis. We have no choice [but to adopt green technology]." When asked why they were implementing green initiatives, an overwhelming 68 percent of the CIOs said it was for bottom-line issues such as energy cost reduction, rather than as a moral imperative or in response to public expectations.

Some 92 percent of the state CIOs said they were either planning or already implementing consolidation strategies but were in varying stages of completion. Twenty seven percent said they were planning consolidation projects, 29 percent said plans were under way, 31 percent said their efforts were at least halfway completed and 12 percent said they were finished with their projects. Only 8 percent of the CIOs said they currently don't plan to undertake consolidation projects.