
In blog published yesterday, the White House's Office of Management and Budget admitted that instead of consolidating data centers as many businesses have done in recent years, the government went in the opposite direction. Between 1998 and 2010, federal agencies actually quadrupled their number of data centers despite increases in the efficiency of data storage.
And of course, taxpayers have been stuck paying the bills for those data centers and all the equipment, supplies, and controls they require. The energy costs can be especially high as such data centers can soak up 200 times as much power as standard office spaces, according to the blog.