Nobody wants to leave money on the table. As companies focus on the role that hardware plays in driving digital transformation, the importance of IT asset recovery—the recovery of value from end-of-use equipment—to the data center grows.
Here are five steps toward maximizing value recovery from your data center hardware.
1. Manage the Entire IT Lifecycle
Thinking of your IT assets as having a fixed shelf life is to sell them short. Instead, take a more rounded approach to the management of your data center equipment.
For any given piece of equipment, IT lifecycle management should begin even before deployment. By designing from the outset with the end in mind, it’s possible to reduce environmental and other negative impacts. And you will maximize the recoverable value from your hardware.
Take hard disk drives, the trusty workhorse of the data center. After appraising the resale markets for enterprise HDDs, end-of-use for a storage drive may simply be the beginning of its next lease of life.
If you’re in any doubt, consider that factory recertified drives may perform better than new drives and cost less.
2. Account Comprehensively
Beyond upfront design, maximizing IT asset recovery from retiring IT equipment is about knowledge and planning.
An initial step in any plan should be a comprehensive audit of your existing records. Is your IT asset management system comprehensively tracking your hardware inventory?
An audit provides IT staff with a holistic view of your hardware assets, their initial values, projected lifespans, and—importantly—the value to the enterprise of the stored data. With this information in hand, an experienced IT asset recovery specialist can help you plan for maximum return when it‘s time to retire equipment.
Proceed carefully, nonetheless. Mark Kier, director of business development at Horizon Technology, advises IT managers to be aware of the type of approach their ITAD company is taking. Whereas some ITAD firms want to sell the full data center equipment, others specialize in spare parts.
“Some ITAD companies are good at looking at the equipment and saying here is a dollar amount and this is what we can do. They will take it in and break it down, and all of a sudden they are reaping the rewards and the customer is not,” remarks Kier.
“The real question to IT managers is whether you’re asking your asset recovery partner for a bid for both options, from selling it as a full system to breaking it down to spare parts.”
Sharing information with an IT asset recovery specialist about what is in your systems will go a long way to securing a win-win, he explains.
“It may be one extra step, but that extra step may allow you to recover more ROI that you didn’t see before. So we really want to take that approach with you, and make sure you are seeing the equipment the way we are seeing it.”
3. Wipe It Clean
To fully maximize the value of IT equipment, pay attention to the asset’s condition.
Unsurprisingly, data center assets are more valuable in the resale market if they’re in a serviceable and clean condition. And that principle of cleanliness extends to data sanitization.
With the right protocols in place, data sanitization is a highly effective method for scrubbing the data off a drive. Importantly, sanitization maintains the physical integrity of the storage media in order for it to be reused.
Wiping drives through software also provides a verifiable trail for compliance purposes. When it comes to the security of your data, a trusted IT asset recovery specialist will always go the extra mile in safeguarding the information stored on your retiring assets.
For a more detailed discussion on data sanitization for data center decommissioning, see our related guide:
A Guide To Secure Data Sanitization In The Data Center
4. Maintain Good Records
Record keeping has many uses. An IT asset that has been tracked through an inventory system since its service date may generate a higher value on the used market for IT goods.
Inspecting the records is also a good way for potential buyers to ‘kick the tires’ on the gear they’ll be buying.
Your IT asset recovery specialist will advise on smart ways of keeping tabs on your data center hardware—and how to present the documentation to best effect.
5. Don’t Hold On
Once you’ve taken the decision to remove an asset out of service for resale, you should be prepared to transfer the asset to the buyer, or the IT asset recovery specialist, as soon as possible.
Like any type of equipment, IT assets depreciate as they age, so keeping something around after it’s out of service or surplus to requirements does not make good business sense.
You may be surprised at the untapped value kicking about on your warehouse shelves and loading docks.
For expert and trusted support with your IT asset recovery needs, contact Horizon Technology and leverage our 25 years of experience working with the largest OEMs and players in the space.
