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Washington Plans Early Closure of State Data Center

The plan calls for shutting down all data activities in the older facility by June 2015 and moving all of its operations into the new State Data Center by that date.

Following a report from Washington state's Office of the Chief Information Officer,  state government plans to shut down one of its older, major data centers and merge data-processing from that facility into the state's new, $262 million State Data Center and office building complex near the Capitol.

Initially, the  Consolidated Technology Services (CTS) agency, which was created in 2011 to operate the new data center, had planned  to transfer half of the older center's data-storage and processing equipment out of its overcrowded basement in Office Building 2 (OB2) — east of the Capitol — and move it into the new data center, The Olympian reported.

But after the analysis by the CIO's office determined it would take about $32 million   just to keep operations going inside OB2 over the next five years, the decision was made to move everything from OB2 over to the new State Data Center.

“It’s cheaper for us to move out of OB2. This report formalizes that business case analysis,” Rob St. John, director of CTS, said in an interview last week.

The new approach will cost about $9 million in the short term, but CIO Michael Cockrill says that overall, it is expected to save money. “The state will avoid a net $23 million in expenses over five years by only operating one central data center instead of two,” according to Cockrill’s report.

The plan calls for shutting down all data activities in Office Building 2 by June 2015 and moving all of its operations into the new State Data Center by that date.