Colorado completes two-year data center migration
After more than two years of work, Colorado this year completed migration from a leased data center to a state-owned data center. Officials said moving from the “eFORT Data Center” to the new “Lakewood Data Center” will save nearly $2 million annually in lease costs, and offer improved data security, cloud capabilities and long-term scalability.
Migration started in June 2022 as part of a Governor’s Office of Information Technology effort to reduce technology debt and modernize technology. The state’s lease of the eFORT Data Center was one of its most expensive, and 26 state agencies had their physical or virtual technologies — such as networks, equipment or applications — housed in the eFORT Data Center.
The state began using the eFORT data center in 2006 after an agency suffered an electronic failure. Soon thereafter, the state took over the location through a lease and ran it as a colocation facility. But over time, usage of the center decreased.
The Lakewood modernization project kicked off in 2021. Dana Thorson, director of OIT’s Data Center and Mainframe Operations, said in a 2021 video about the project that it was the largest project in OIT’s history.
According to the state, more than 300 project team members from OIT spent a collective 19,000 hours supporting the migration, including late nights and 34 weekends. Migrations had to occur during non-business hours to ensure operations were minimally disrupted. An OIT spokesperson said more than 1,000 pieces of obsolete IT equipment and 2,500 pounds of ethernet cabling — or 11 miles of cable — were removed during the migration.
Additionally, the 145 racks used by the state at the eFORT Data Center have now been retired.
“Exiting the costly leased eFORT Data Center was a colossal effort requiring close collaboration across multiple state agencies. From planning to completion, we migrated 26 agencies and OIT out of the leased data center in less than three years, which is not a small feat. Exiting eFORT paves the way for optimization, modernization and innovation while saving the state over $1.8m yearly in lease expenses,” Thorson said in a statement to StateScoop via email. “I want to thank the many team members and our leadership. Through long nights over many weekends, our teams came together to make this a reality, and they are a testament to public service in Colorado. We look forward to a bright future for our state data center operations.”
