What you talkin' 'bout, fool? Does anybody else remember the "A-Team" - Murdock, B.A. Baracus, Hannibal, and Faceman? When planning a mission, George Peppard - the one-time-"Banacek" star - and the "A-Team's" Hannibal, coined the line, "I love it when a plan comes together..."

Well, we've been working with a group of Fed IT pros to put together a little caper of our own. An operational dialogue on Data Center Consolidation - DCC - called MeriTalk 1,100 on May 20 at the Reagan Building in D.C. We started the planning knee-deep in the "snowpocalypse," when OMB released its Federal DCC Initiative memo on February 26. To net it out, data centers are like rabbits, and the population is out of control - it's skyrocketed from 432 in 1999 to more than 1,100 today. And, they're expensive little bunnies, and many of them aren't working that hard - so OMB wants fewer rabbits working harder. DCC is myxomatosis. OMB's directive does point to the green opportunity. Federal data centers are hungry - in 2006, they consumed over 6 billion kWh and are projected to eat 12 kWh by 2011. And, who wouldn't want to save some lettuce, or carrots as the case may be?

We chatted with Feds about the DCC directive. Feedback - this is big stuff. A significant part of Uncle Sam's IT spend goes on bunnies. We ran into a DCC lead from one agency and learned that each agency has a "bunny killer" lead - I'll do my best to avoid the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" jokes. We asked if they knew their peers in other agencies? Nope. Interesting that the Feds should push out a program focused on consolidation and better workload optimization without providing the leads with a list of their peers in other agencies. We scampered about trying to identify the bunny killers in other agencies. Within a week, we hosted a conference call with 45 participants - the DCC leads from many agencies. Real progress. We extended an invitation to the two lead execs from the CIO Council - Richard Spires, CIO, DHS, and Michael Duffy, CIO, Treasury. Richard Spires signed up and will keynote alongside Bob Otto, the former CIO at USPS - they'll share the vision and the operational reality. Regret Michael Duffy had a conflict and could not make it. Neil Wright from Treasury will share his private-sector perspective on how a major DCC initiative delivered at UPS. Fifteen Federal DCC experts signed up to speak in the program. More than 400 DCC experts and operators signed up to attend. Great stuff.

But, let's go back to the A-Team's Hannibal - throughout the planning calls, Feds nibbled at the disconnect between the DCC and green IT mandates. While the DCC stuff talks green, there was no connection between the DCC goals and the green IT goals as established in E.O. 13423 - requiring agencies to reduce energy intensity by 3 percent annually - and in E.O. 13514 - focused on reducing green house gas and sustainability. Considering the overlap between the green mandates, why not combine agencies' green IT planning and reporting? Further, why shouldn't agencies map their green IT initiatives into DCC planning? Mike Howell of OMB released a Modification to 2011 Passback Language for Green IT Plans on Thursday, April 29 that brings the green IT and DCC plans together. Now we need to identify and share the relevant agency points of contact and enable real operational dialogue - conversations among stakeholders where we discuss successes and challenges, and work together to map a high-value path forward. To be sure, the path ahead is not easy. Like an A-Team assignment, the mission is difficult. We are greatly encouraged by OMB's good-sense decision to level stove pipes and lighten the redundant reporting streams - as George Peppard would say, "I love it when a plan comes together..."