Dive Brief:

• The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s information technology team is working to consolidate its 97 data centers into about eight, with virtualized servers and storage and cloud services available.
• The IT team has already spent nearly two years identifying administrative processes that could be streamlined and aggregated, with a consultant finding that the current data centers create duplication and overspending in the areas of hardware, electricity, labor, and facilities.
• How much money will be saved through the consolidation has yet to be determined.

Dive Insight:

Steve Krogull, head of the data center aggregation effort, has the task of convincing campus data users that a central service will be better than their local services, according to Campus Technology. That will include discussing data privacy concerns, and whether cloud storage will make the data more vulnerable to security breaches. The nature of users’ data will determine where it is housed — whether it is low risk or infrequently used, for example, or it if is highly restricted with intellectual property issues. Some of the existing data centers will remain as stand-alone operations.