“In recent years, federal agencies have moved more and more of their services and operations online, increasing their need for computer power and data storage—and leading to a dramatic rise in the number of federal data centers. These buildings house computer systems and equipment and, as we’ve previously reported, have significant costs for hardware, software, real estate, and electricity. Despite federal efforts to cut costs by reducing the number of federal data centers, the government still operates thousands of these buildings. Today’s WatchBlog explores some challenges that federal agencies have faced in consolidating and optimizing these centers…” [h/t Pete Weiss]