There comes a time in every data centre manager's life where they need to say goodbye and part company with their equipment. Data centre decommissioning projects involve much more complexity than most companies directors tend to understand. There is so much that can go wrong during the decommission process, and quite often some accidents or errors will happen.
To reduce the impact of accidents or system failures, you need to draw up a sound decommissioning checklist. It helps to break your project down into manageable bite-sized chunks. This helps you to set mini-targets to achieve, but also will help more easily identify and fix any problems that arise during your steps towards your final goal.
If all this sounds like too much work for you to cope with, or your company IT staff lacks the practical hands-on knowledge of what needs to go into a successful decommissioning, then you should turn to a professional data centre decommissioning company for help.
This is where Restore Technology can help you! We have over thirty years of knowledge and experience with IT relocation and decommissioning across all business sectors.
We are here to help you formulate a decommissioning plan of action and then give you our assistance to get the job done safely and securely. We can help manage your data centre decommissioning project through all the necessary stages, such as:
Preliminary Planning
· Identify and engage with all relevant stakeholders and decision makers
· Develop a budget
· Establish a project timetable
· Create a detailed plan of work for all processes, stages of removal/demolition
· Schedule a timetable for the decommission in off hours with a safety buffer for potential delays
Once we have an agreed plan in place and a set timetable for your decommissioning, we will then thoroughly research and test your equipment using appropriate network discovery tools. We will ensure that all data is saved and backed up.
Physical Discovery
Restore Technology will then move on to conduct a physical audit where we will compile a hardware map and verify our finding with you. Along with this we will also review and confirm your system's network of staff including:
· Data and IT Management
· Developers
· Operators
· Users
Finally we will work out an Asset Map for you that will list all assets that are earmarked for live decommissioning. This will include:
· Air and cooling equipment
· Cabling
· Network equipment
· Power equipment
· Servers
· Software
· Storage systems
· VMs
Implementation Planning
Once our Restore Technology experts have compiled all of our data, we will work on an implementation plan with step by step instructions for your decommissioning project. A project manager will be appointed to oversee your physical decommissioning and we will set up a reporting system with key staff members and company officers to ensure everyone is kept in the loop and informed as the process gets underway.
Where we will need to conduct live decommissioning projects, we will ensure that we create a communication network that involves every member of staff that may be affected by the work, or will need to be informed of any issues that arise. This can help to reduce loss of productivity during downtimes and allow alternate plans to be put in place.
Equipment Needed for Decommissioning
Restore Technology can provide and manage all tools and necessary equipment needed to carry out your data centre decommissioning. These will include
· Drive shredders/ degaussers
· Forklifts and moving vehicles
· Hoists
· Pallets and crating for servers
· Polyethylene foam packing materials
· Transport vehicles
We will also discuss and agree on the final destination for all of your hardware assets, whether you want them to be destroyed, recycled, reused or sold on.
Find out more about our asset recycling and destruction services or contact us to discuss your needs with our friendly customer service team.
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