Information Technology (IT) infrastructure refresh cycles are one of the most critical aspects of modern businesses – large and small. Gone are the days when you could run off of legacy equipment and hope for the best. U.S. businesses waste up to $1.8 billion in productivity due to managing security updates and other IT infrastructure setups needed to maintain existing technology. A recent Data Center Migration whitepaper determined that 64% of large organizations and 41% of small to mid-size organizations have had to stall or abandon components of their IT transformation projects due to unforeseen challenges. When you consider cloud-migration initiatives – regular, organized infrastructure refresh cycles for data centers are critical to a company’s success and security.
But what factors should one consider when scheduling a data center refresh project? What are the risks and perhaps even opportunities? We'll cover the considerations when planning a large IT data center refresh plan and identify the questions to ask when selecting a potential partner for your data center migration.
The Components of a Successful Data Center Migration
A successful data center migration should address: mitigating environmental and data security risks, as well as maximizing the value from the decommissioned IT assets.
- It is Minimizing Risk – ensuring that the equipment is appropriately handled and sanitized, that the disposition process protects your company from liability, and that is considers and reduces the environmental impact of the disposed equipment.
- But also, Maximizing Value – while some equipment may be old and of no value, it may still contain parts of value. Working with the right vendor helps you understand which parts do have value, and helps you minimize the overall proportion of parts that are ultimately being responsibly recycled. By reusing and reselling more of these parts, you are helping reduce the environmental impact of your decommissioned equipment, and are generating more dollars at the same time.
Advantages of Using a Third Party to Manage Your Data Center Migration
Organizations will sometimes attempt to perform data center migrations internally, which often leads to mistakes and loss of productivity since such activities are not part of these teams’ core competencies. Because an experienced IT refurbisher/third party ITAD vendor has an extensive background in IT migrations, they handle the entire project soup-to-nuts, and indemnify your company from any potential liability.
Other advantages include:
- Clear accountability and coordination. IT projects by definition are complex. An experienced ITAD (Information Technology Asset Disposal) vendor is able to handle reverse-logistics and process decommissioned equipment efficiently, while being held fully accountable for every piece of hardware they handle.
- Full visibility is key. This includes a letter of indemnification listing every serial number processed and sanitized. This also includes detailed reports showing the types of equipment processed, and the proportion of equipment that the vendor was able to resell / reuse or upcycle vs. responsibly recycle. This also includes – for R2-Certified (or e-Stewards) vendors – a guarantee that no serial number which was responsibly recycled ends in a landfill.
- You are able to focus on your core business. Did we mention soup-to-nuts?
How to Select the Right Vendor
Here are some questions to ask:
- Does this vendor have an R2 or e-Stewards certification? Do they exclusively process equipment received from certified facilities?
- Data Destruction. What protocols does this vendor follow? What checks and balances do they have in place?
- E-Waste Recycling. Does this vendor have full downstream visibility? Are they required to audit their downstream vendors?
- Does this vendor care about maximizing the proportion of equipment (or individual parts) that is ultimately reused and not responsibly recycled? Do they have a strong commitment to do so?
- Reporting. What sort of reporting does this vendor provide? How much visibility will your company have? Are such reports “sexy” enough for your CSR department to showcase?
- Reverse Logistics. Is this vendor able to come in and take all existing equipment offline from your network? Are they able to reconfigure equipment to your request?
Final Thoughts
Deciding to upgrade your existing equipment is only half the battle: for all businesses – large and small – it is critical to work with a certified partner that is able to handle the volume that usually comes with an organization's equipment refresh cycles. A reputable ITAD vendor will also have experience in the Asset Management component of removing e-waste and the essential documentation to ensure you can prove your organization has acted responsibly and legally. A strong partner can even help tag your new, incoming assets for the next round of renewals.
If you are in the position of managing a data center migration and would like to know more, please reach out to info@techmikeny.com so we can start the conversation!