The United States federal government recently announced that there was to be a reduction in the number of data center facilities. The United States CIO Vivek Kundra sent a memo to agencies announcing the move and required preparations for it.
In 1999, there were 432 facilities; eleven years later, the number has nearly tripled to more than 1,100.
Reasons given for the massive reduction include costs and energy efficiency. With the changes in the federal government that happen every four years (otherwise known as “electing a new president”), it should not be a surprise that the consolidation is to happen by 2012.
With the economy as it is currently, any massive change like this will affect many sectors. Data center providers that have inefficient facilities will find themselves losing a major customer if federal agencies leave for other providers.
This shift to more efficient data centers, on the other hand, can spur the building of new data centers: this will affect the building trades in a positive way, and quite likely shift the related data center providers towards a more positive outlook.
Intel is also going through a data center consolidation; they’ve an entire web site dedicated to the process which has valuable information.
UNIX Administratosphere 
Where can we see this memo?
Thanks