Iron Mountain secure data center decommissioning

Asset Lifecycle Management

Data center decommissioning

Maximizing data center value recovery while ensuring compliance and sustainability

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Achieve circular data center excellence

No matter how large or varied your data center footprint is, Iron Mountain has the experience, physical resources, and global presence to support you with secure and sustainable asset lifecycle management services. We operate in the most complex environments all over the world across owned sites, co-location facilities, and small points of presence.

Our large breadth of services ensure strict security and audit compliance, while maximizing value recovery from retired hardware. Iron Mountain ensures unmatched data security through a secure chain of custody that tracks IT assets at every stage of their journey.

Rack decommissioning

Services for data centers

Services for data centers

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Plan & design

As we develop a service plan that complements your data center strategy, we will also ensure we are meeting your requirements for technology integrations, project management, and reporting.

  • API integration:
    Our tech integration ensures a streamlined workflow within your existing systems, improving the asset management experience for client administrators through frictionless case management, logistics scheduling, inventory management, dashboards, reporting, and workflow automations.
  • Audit-ready reporting:
    Our on-demand reporting ensures you have easy access to inventory reports, audit reports, settlement reports, certificates of destruction (CODs), and sustainability reports that include metrics like e-waste diversion, materials recovered, and CO2 reduction.
Learn more about our Environmental Benefits Report
Commission

From asset receiving and tagging to storage, we ensure your assets are visible and available when you need them.

  • Inventory management:
    Our inventory management services, including asset receiving, tagging, tracking, and storage, ensure that your IT investment is well-managed and available for deployment when you need it.

    Asset tagging enables precise tracking through serialized labels, RFID tags, or barcodes. Comprehensive inventory management systems record each asset's status and location.

    Periodic audits are conducted to verify inventory accuracy and ensure policy adherence, mitigating the risk of loss or misappropriation of assets.
Operate & scale

Deployment marks the transition of hardware from preparation to active use. Our industry-leading logistics ensure timely and accurate delivery of your data center assets.

  • Forward logistics
    Our forward logistics services include meticulous record-keeping, including real-time asset status, providing a clear, on-demand view of the deployment landscape.
Decommission

When it comes to the removal of data center infrastructure, Iron Mountain provides an industry-leading chain of custody for asset collections.

  • Asset packing:
    Our technicians will expertly pack and remove your assets from your data center and transport them to our state-of-the-art facilities for further processing according to your requirements.
  • Collection:
    Your ready-to-transport data center assets are individually scanned and picked up by our secure and reliable logistics team for transport back to our facilities for processing.
Reuse

Our ADISA-certified, NIST 800-88 compliant data sanitization service ensures the secure remarketing of HDD and SSD storage devices.

  • Data sanitization:
    All hard drives identified for reuse are thoroughly wiped using an ADISA-certified, NIST 800-88 compliant data sanitization platform. A serialized certificate of sanitization is provided for all sanitized assets. Learn more about Teraware in this video.
  • Remarket:
    Our remarketing network enables the resale of servers and drives in the secondary market – offering value recovery back to your organization. We also provide a monthly settlement report to ensure transparency into the remarketing process.
Retire

When data center assets are no longer suitable for reuse, our onsite and offsite destruction options and sustainable e-waste recycling services ensure your assets are responsibly disposed of.

  • Secure destruction & e-waste recycling:
    For the physical destruction of data-bearing assets, we offer onsite or offsite shredding of storage media. All physically destroyed media is accompanied by a certificate of destruction (COD). Physically shredded media and hardware of no residual value are separated into commodities and sent to R2 or e-Stewards-certified recyclers to be reintroduced into the supply chain, reducing the need for extracting raw materials from the earth.

Decom workflow diagram

Data center ITAD & decommissioning step-by-step

A deeper dive into Iron Mountain’s data center decommissioning process.

According to Gartner®

The three most important tasks to execute correctly, and to which ITAD executives should pay special attention, are transportation logistics/chain of custody, data sanitization, and recycling. These three tasks represent the greatest risk in the ITAD process, and they should be handled by an experienced, well-vetted ITAD service provider.

Iron Mountain is recognized as a Representative Provider in the Gartner Market Guide for IT Asset Disposition for the fifth time consecutively.

Download your complimentary copy of the 2024 Market Guide®


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*Gartner Market Guide for IT Asset Disposition; Rob Schafer, Christopher Dixon; November 6, 2024 Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner Logo: GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Customer success story: hyperscale services provider

Challenge

Arrival of new servers and storage, which were rapidly losing value while waiting for installation, placed a premium on accelerating decommissioning for this hyperscale services provider. While the nature of the business mandated maximum data security, the provider needed return on investment from asset remarketing to help fund increased tech refreshes.

Solution

Iron Mountain’s custom data center decommissioning services safely, securely, and efficiently executed comprehensive data erasure, uninstallation, removal, and secure shipment of equipment to state-of-the-art processing facilities for remarketing.

Results

All racks were data-free and ready to be wheeled out four days after the project started. All assets were removed from the client site within 14 days. Remarketing the retired assets netted the client several million dollars, helping to close budget gaps.

By the numbers

  • 297
    racks
  • 121,893
    drives (HDD, SSD, flash cards)
  • 100%
    of drives erased or securely destroyed, with certification
  • 4 days
    data elimination complete
  • 2 weeks
    all racks removed
  • $4.4M
    client proceeds

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