Bloomberg opens new consolidated data center; Saving $100 million in 5 years; 18,000 s/f Brooklyn facility to house 40 city agencies

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, deputy mayor for operations Stephen Goldsmith and department of information technology and telecommunications (DoITT) commissioner Carole Post opened the city's new data center. The 18,000 s/f facility will allow the city to centralize the technology infrastructure of 19 agencies over the next year and that of more than 40 agencies over the next five years, saving roughly $100 million in that period alone. The initial data center costs are $11.7 million, including hardware, software, equipment and facilities build-out, with annual leasing costs of $2.7 million. The consolidation effort, known as the Citywide IT Infrastructure Services (CITIServ) Program, will reduce the city's IT infrastructure footprint, provide a unified set of shared IT services to city entities, reduce energy consumption, strengthen IT security and improve overall service quality for agencies through modernized technology infrastructure. It is part of a broader effort spearheaded by Goldsmith - called NYC Simplicity - to make city government more efficient, more innovative and more customer-focused. Joining Bloomberg at the new data center at MetroTech Center were borough president Marty Markowitz and council member Stephen Levin. "New York City is constantly employing new technology to improve and modernize services for New Yorkers, but until now the infrastructure behind that technology has been fragmented," said Bloomberg. "By consolidating the IT operations of more than 40 city agencies, we'll modernize the city's technology infrastructure while saving taxpayers $100 million in the first five years alone. And by reducing the IT work done by individual city agencies, we'll enable them to concentrate more of their resources on what they really do best: teaching students, protecting our neighborhoods, cleaning our streets, preventing and putting out fires, and doing all the other things that improve our quality of life." "Through NYC Simplicity, we're constantly looking for new ways to streamline operations, improve services and save scarce taxpayer dollars," said Goldsmith. "Consolidating the city's currently fragmented IT infrastructure into unified data centers is the latest example of how we're becoming a more efficient city government and achieving the goals of NYC Simplicity." "The process of consolidating, unifying and re-purposing disparate data centers is now or will soon be underway at agencies across the city," said Post. "The value of having this data center now available is that it provides the capacity and services to ensure seamless transitions for those agencies, particularly those with systems nearing end-of-life or seeking to expand to meet space, storage or power needs. Those investments can now be combined, reduced or eliminated because of this new facility." Today, the city operates dozens of unique data centers, many of which have evolved in a fragmented way across more than 40 entities and lack fundamental capabilities such as 24x7 support, fire suppression, emergency recovery, and security planning. The centralized IT infrastructure created through CITIServ will expand the existing shared services environment and enable DoITT to provide technology services for all city agencies, including modern, reliable, redundant, secure and green services at reduced costs. To date, the mayor's office of media and entertainment' IT operations, the department of sanitation's IT service desk, and the department of education's "HR Connect" application have been moved into the centralized CITIServ environment. These systems alone support 140,000 users, and their consolidation will achieve a recurring annual savings of $200,000. In addition, ongoing consolidation work at the department of finance and the department of citywide administrative services will realize several million dollars in incremental gains due to certain targeted migrations and investment deferrals. The technology infrastructure of more than 40 city agencies is forecasted to be consolidated by the end of 2014. "I'm so excited for the opening of this facility - it is truly a new chapter in the city's information technology infrastructure," said city council speaker Christine Quinn. "I want to applaud mayor Bloomberg, deputy mayor Goldsmith and commissioner Post for this great initiative that will save money and improve resources for our city." "There is no better indication of how much mayor Bloomberg grasps the future than the consolidation and modernization of our city government's IT infrastructure," said Markowitz. "By combining the IT backbone of 40 city agencies in one place - and what better location than downtown Brooklyn - the CITIServ program will save $100 million over the next five years alone. Now that's what I call taking a bite out of the city's budget. Or, should I say, a 'megabyte.'" "This announcement by mayor Bloomberg and deputy mayor Goldsmith is proof that New York City is on the vanguard of innovation in technology," said Levin. "Not only will this consolidation streamline our City's agencies, but it will save our city $100 million over five years. It's a win-win. I applaud mayor Bloomberg, deputy mayor Goldsmith, and their staffs for their innovative vision." In addition to IT consolidation, CITIServ also provides for more effective collaboration and a unified citywide IT strategy to better serve the city's many businesses, visitors, and residents. By sharing the latest in operating systems, servers, development and collaboration tools across agencies, the city will be able to increase productivity among its programmers, developers and other IT resources by reducing the need to purchase, support and maintain new hardware at the individual agency level. When all agencies are migrated into the CITIServ shared services environment, they will be able to focus increased attention on their core missions of serving the public - while their IT infrastructure is managed and supported 24x7 by DoITT. In full, the CITIServ program offers: * Application Hosting Services: standard, dedicated and virtual hosting environments with a variety of service levels, processing and memory capacities; * Network Services: access to the city's wired network (CityNet), voice over internet protocol (VoIP), video conferencing, and New York City's wireless network; * Data and Storage Services: modern, flexible storage solutions for all hosted applications; * Collaboration Services: Email with archiving, BlackBerry servicing, eFax, and instant messaging; and, * Citywide Service Desk: a 24x7, convenient, single point of contact for end users to address IT support needs, IT issue resolution, as well as ticket generation and easily accessible modern tracking tools. As the City's IT utility, DoITT ensures the sustained, efficient delivery of IT services, infrastructure and telecommunications. The agency establishes the City's IT strategic direction, security policies and standards; procures citywide IT services, and evaluates emerging technologies; provides project management, application development and quality assurance services; maintains the City's official website NYC.gov, new media development and operations, and Geographic Information Systems; operates the City's data center, the dedicated wireless network, the wired network, the Citywide Service Desk, and telecommunications systems; administers telecommunications franchise contracts providing fiber, cable television, public pay telephones, and mobile telecom equipment installed on city property and streets; administers the 311 Customer Service Center; and fosters public-private partnerships to improve IT service delivery. In October 2010, as part of the Simplicity initiative, mayor Bloomberg, deputy mayor Goldsmith and DoITT commissioner Post joined Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to announce a wide-ranging information technology agreement to consolidate the city's dozens of individual license agreements into a single one and will provide more than 100,000 city employees with computing power. The agreement fosters collaboration among City employees, allows agencies to share their technology developments and will save the city $50 million over five years.