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For data centre operators & tenants
Everything that comes out of the rack, accounted for.
This page is about the equipment: what typically leaves a data centre, how each type is handled, and where the value and the risk sit. For the project side — sequencing, access, change windows — see the data centre decommissioning page.
Start here
Send the rack elevations or a DCIM export if you have them. If you do not, tell us the rack count and we will plan to capture the inventory at de-rack.
Request a data centre assessment
Our position
Equipment-level thinking, not just project-level
A decommissioning plan answers when and in what order. It does not by itself answer what happens to a storage array with forty-eight drive carriers, or to a rack UPS with a battery string, or to a chassis switch whose line cards are worth more than the chassis.
Those are equipment questions, and they determine both the documentation and the commercial outcome. An array reconciled carrier by carrier is a controls artefact; an array counted as 'one unit' is a liability. A UPS declared upfront ships safely; one discovered on the day delays the vehicle.
We treat the inventory as the product of the engagement, not a by-product of it.
Situations
You will probably recognise one of these.
Platform refresh
A generation of compute and storage replaced in place, with the outgoing hardware needing to leave the same floor the new hardware is arriving on.
Colocation exit
Leaving a suite or cage under the provider's rules — notice period, escort, induction, make-good — with the equipment needing to be out before the contract end date.
Consolidation to cloud
A private facility being wound down over months as workloads migrate, with racks emptying in waves rather than all at once.
Edge and branch server rooms
Dozens of small server rooms across a branch estate, each with a rack or two, retired as infrastructure centralises.
Our approach
What we do differently for you.
Servers logged per unit
Make, model, serial and U position captured at de-rack, rails and accessories recovered with the chassis, internal drives itemised separately.
Storage reconciled per carrier
Controllers, shelves and drive carriers counted against the array configuration. Media handled exactly as your written instruction states.
Network modules recorded against chassis
Line cards, supervisors, optics and transceivers logged with the chassis they came from, so nothing high-value disappears into a general count.
Power equipment declared upfront
UPS units and battery strings identified at scoping because they change how a load is packed, transported and accepted downstream.
Process
Every engagement runs the same six stages.
- Step 01
Asset Discovery
Establish exactly what is being retired, and where it sits.
- Step 02
Collection & Logistics
Move the hardware off your floor without disrupting what stays.
- Step 03
Asset Assessment
Determine what still has working life, and what does not.
- Step 04
Data Security & Processing
Media handled the way you instruct, recorded line by line.
- Step 05
Reuse & Recovery
Keep working hardware working before it becomes material.
- Step 06
Responsible Recycling
Close out end-of-life material through accountable channels.
FAQ
Questions we are asked before the first call
- 01Can racks be collected as complete units?
- Yes, where the physical route allows it — lift dimensions, door widths and floor loading decide. Otherwise racks are de-populated first and the enclosure moved separately. Either way the units inside are recorded individually.
- 02What happens to structured cabling and patch panels?
- They can be included in scope and are listed explicitly rather than assumed, because they are the last things removed and the easiest to leave behind.
- 03Do you handle tape libraries and cartridges?
- Yes. Cartridges are data-bearing media and are declared and handled separately from the library hardware, to your written instruction.
Have equipment coming out of a data centre?
Send the rack elevations or a DCIM export if you have them. If you do not, tell us the rack count and we will plan to capture the inventory at de-rack.