GSA Blog

Building a data center community of practice

This month over one hundred government data center representatives from around the country participated in the second meeting of the Data Center Optimization Initiative Community of Practice. The CoP is a forum driven by the needs of the agencies and personnel charged with implementing the data center provisions of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act [PDF].

Agencies provide perspective on data center optimization and consolidation

Dale Sartor from the Department of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory gave an informative presentation on the resources available through the Center of Expertise for Energy Efficiency in Data Centers. CoP members can view information about Data Center Energy Practitioner (DCEP) Training, search a repository of resources by technology and type, and access tools to help data center operators and owners identify best practices.

Jim Walker from the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) provided an overview of the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage (NCCIPS) shared services mission, offerings, and facility.

Managing partner announcements

In alignment with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-16-19, OMB has published OGP’s Definition of Significant Expansion on cio.gov. The document defines the thresholds for what constitutes significant expansion of a data center.

On September 28, 2016, GSA released the Federal Data Center Inter-Agency Shared Service Provider Application Guidance. This memo establishes the ISSP designation process, and FY17 ISSP criteria and application deadlines. If your agency is interested in becoming an ISSP, submit the EOI form to the DCOI Managing Partner at dcoi@gsa.gov by October 27, 2016.

Save the Date and Get Involved

The next CoP meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 2 starting at 10:30am. Recaps of the Q&A session hosted in each session will be published on cio.gov.

Please contact us at dcoi@gsa.gov to learn more.