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After a career that spans more than 30 years in technology, including more than 10 years in the mortgage industry, Robert Lux joined Freddie Mac as senior vice president and chief information officer in October 2010, more than two years after the government-sponsored enterprises went into federal conservatorship. It's perhaps that outsider's perspective that's helped guide his direction of the McLean, Va.-based company's information technology assets and services.
During his short tenure, Lux has directed an extensive reworking of Freddie Mac's approach to IT projects and oversaw the job of replacing the company's aging servicer reporting platform, MIDANET, with a cloud-hosted servicing portal called Service Loans.
In addition, Lux has managed the teams working on a variety of initiatives handed down by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, like the multifaceted Uniform Mortgage Data Program and the technology requirements associated with the GSEs' Servicer Alignment Initiative.
In his first interview since joining Freddie Mac, Lux spoke exclusively with Mortgage Technology about a wide range of topics. Turn the page for Part I of the Q&A, where Lux talks about Freddie Mac's transition to cloud computing with the Service Loans project.
Additional segments of the interview will be published on MT's website, mortgage-technology.com, where Lux discusses other goals for Freddie Mac, his thoughts about the ongoing UMDP and how he hopes technology will improve the relationship between Freddie Mac and its customers.
MT: How is Freddie Mac utilizing cloud computing for its IT needs?
Lux: There was an EPA study a few years back that showed data centers consume 3% of all electricity in the U.S. It's a measurable amount of electricity, enough to power 5.8 million average U.S. households or every TV in the United States.
With all of that electricity consumption, the average data center, in terms of server utilization, is less than 6%. So what happens to the other 94% that you're paying a lot for electricity, floor space, maintenance and everything? It goes out the window. The whole idea with cloud is what do you do with that 94% that's lost?
The reason that you're at only 6% is because every data center has to be architected to meet peak demand. If you look at Amazon or eBay, which have a ton...