April 18, 2025 • 18 mins
The often-invisible backbone of our digital world, the physical infrastructure of data centers, carries significant environmental weight when it reaches the end of its operational life. This podcast episode delves into the crucial yet frequently overlooked process of data center decommissioning. Mark Petrie from Quantum Lifecycle Partners sheds light on the complexities involved as organizations increasingly migrate to the cloud due to the demands of artificial intelligence and the need for technology refreshes, all while navigating cybersecurity concerns. This shift generates a constant stream of retired IT equipment, laden with both valuable materials and sensitive information.
Key Takeaways:
- Cloud migration and AI growth increase data center decommissioning, requiring secure and responsible handling.
- Successful migration needs careful planning: application mapping, prioritized steps, and contingency plans.
- Choose certified partners (NAID for security, R2v3 for environment) for responsible decommissioning.
- Proper handling enables circular economy benefits: mineral recovery, reduced impact, and potential returns.
- Explore resources like Quantum Lifecycle Partners for secure, sustainable technology transitions.
Thanks for listening!
If you like our podcasts, please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Want to be a guest on The Circular Future podcast? Email Sanjay Trivedi at strivedi@quantumlifecycle.com
- Listen on: https://quantumlifecycle.com/podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Data centers run the backbone of the internet, so how
do we embrace circularity indata centers?
Welcome, to the circular future,your access to thought leaders
and innovations to help you be abusiness sustainability
champion, even if it's not yourcore job.
I'm your host, stephanieMcLarty, head of Sustainability
(00:36):
at Quantum Lifecycle Partners,your trusted partner in
electronics circularity.
In our last episode, number 47,we talked about the
environmental impact ofartificial intelligence and we
touched on the important roledata centers play.
Today, we're doing something alittle bit differently and we're
(00:57):
diving into this specific areaof data centers with a short and
sweet episode.
What does circularity for datacenters look like?
What do we need to know whenthe servers and networking
equipment get to the end oftheir life?
With me is my colleague here atQuantum Lifecycle Partners,
mark Petrie, who is our managerof business development for
(01:21):
what's called SSN Servers,storage and Network, which is
also known as data centers.
Welcome to the podcast, mark.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Good morning.
Thanks for having me, Stephanie.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well excited to dive into this area and I have to
admit we generally talk aboutelectronics as a whole and the
impact around circularity,basically anything with a
battery or a plug.
But today we're diving into thespecific topic of data centers,
which I'm not so versed in, butI know you are.
I first want to start off thisconversation looking at data
(01:56):
centers and really around thedecommissioning of them.
Why do companies choose todecommission their data centers?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So probably the main reason people decommission
equipment within their datacenters is simply because
they're doing a technologyrefresh.
The existing platform hasgotten a bit long in tooth and
it can't keep up with theapplication or the growth in the
application, or it's becomingtoo hard to maintain.
So they just decided to refreshthe technology and replace it
(02:26):
with newer, faster, betterperforming technology.
One of the other reasons theydo it is because they've decided
you know what I really don'twant to be managing all these
applications and all theassociated hardware, so I'm
going to move certainapplications into the cloud.
So they just migrate all ofthat application into the cloud
(02:47):
and then they retire thatequipment.
And then probably the lastreason for equipment is they've
just the application itself hasrun its lifecycle and is now
being retired, so they're goingto let it lapse into obscurity
and just replace that or removethat equipment.
Now there are some cases wherecustomers decide you know what
(03:10):
our core business is retail orpharmaceutical, or banking we
really don't want to be in theIT business in which case they
outsource everything in the datacenter to an outsourcing
company, or perhaps they moveeverything into the cloud.
At that point they're not justgetting rid of equipment in the
data center.
If they decide to repurpose thedata center, they're going to
(03:32):
get rid of all the equipment andthen all the infrastructure
that supports the ITinfrastructure.
So that's the race floor itselfoverhead cabling trays, power
distribution, cooling chillers,backup power.
They may even have diesel powergenerators.
So all of that stuff that wouldnormally be associated with the
data center is now removed.
(03:53):
So those are the main reasonswhy people decide to get out of
the data center business.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Right, and that makes a lot of sense.
And what you've touched on, too, is that there's a lot more
gear there than just the actualservers and the storage
equipment.
It's everything that runs thatdata center.
You mentioned about moving tothe cloud and outsourcing.
Let's dive into that a littlebit deeper.
(04:19):
Why are companies doing that?
Why are they moving from thetraditional data center model to
cloud-based models?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So at the beginning you touched on AI, and that's
one of the big drivers right now, as people are moving to AI.
But, as you know, it requires ahuge amount of power in
addition to regular processors,and because it draws more power,
it also creates more heat.
So then you've got more powerrequirements just to run the
processor and then more powerrequirements for the cooling as
(04:50):
well.
So in some cases it can be alittle difficult for customers,
especially if they're in anenvironment where they don't
have access to more power andthey don't have access to more
cooling and have access to morecooling.
So rather than take on thatchallenge, they've just decided
you know what I'm going to moveto the cloud and let somebody
else, whose business it is torun a data center, to handle
(05:11):
that.
And then the other thing in mymind that plays into this is
cybersecurity.
Everybody right now is paranoidabout getting hacked and
getting held for ransom.
So there's actually companiesout there that will provide that
as a service, but a lot ofpeople are simply moving to the
cloud because now that becomesthe responsibility of the cloud
(05:33):
provider.
Yes, you still have to putcertain things in place on your
end, but by and large.
The majority of theinfrastructure to support your
security is handled by somebodyelse, so you don't need to have
experts in that technology andit's just easier for most people
.
In fact, a lot of smaller andmedium-sized companies are
(05:55):
choosing not to even have datacenters.
They're just going right to thecloud.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Wow yeah, cybersecurity is definitely a
hot topic for everyone, and thatmakes a lot of sense.
Let someone who specializes inthis, who has experts in this,
take care of the certain piecesof equipment, or whether you're
(06:26):
doing a complete refresh or acomplete decommissioning, you
have to think about the businesscontinuity side, to ensure that
you don't lose any importantaccess to documents, files,
emails, even the internet, sincewe're all so dependent on it.
What would you say are thethings that a business needs to
(06:48):
consider in terms of businesscontinuity during a data center
migration?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So there's a number of things.
One of the first things youhave to do is application
mapping.
And to explain that, I mean,let's say you have a web server
that your customers log into andthey select something that
they're going to purchase fromyou, and then they go ahead and
process all that.
That web server could thentransfer that data to another
(07:16):
intermediate server which takesall that data and now makes it
available to your ERP system,which processes the order, a CRM
system, which is how you managea relationship with the
customer, and even potentially,a financial system.
So now you've got potentiallyfive different servers that are
involved in this process, aswell as the networking
infrastructure and the storagebehind it.
(07:38):
So whenever you're movingsomething, you want to make sure
you move all the systemsassociated with an application
at the same time, so there's nodisruption to the application.
Then one of the other thingsyou want to do is when it comes
to scheduling.
You want to rank yourapplications from most critical
to least critical, and thereason you want to do that and
(08:00):
it assumes that you have thetime to move things individually
you want to do the leastcritical things first.
So if you've got to develop anenvironment or you've got a user
acceptance testing environmentor whatever it happens to be.
You want to move that one first, and then what that allows you
to do is to do a postmortem, soif there's any hiccups on the
way, you can identify thosehiccups and make sure that you
(08:22):
smooth them out the next timearound.
It also allows all the people,from both the partner that
you're working with as well asyour own staff, to be familiar
with what their roles andresponsibilities are, so that
the next time they do it it'sbetter.
So by the time you come to themost critical applications,
you've done it a few times.
(08:42):
I'm not going to say it'sroutine, because it's never
routine, but at least you've gotsome experience with it, so
that there's less stress on youwhen you do that.
The other thing I would suggestis that if you're contemplating
a technology refresh, now is theperfect time to do it.
You can stand up the net newenvironment at your new facility
(09:04):
, get it up and running,replicate data from your
existing site to the new site,run both systems in parallel and
then, at such a time as you'recomfortable, you can take the
old system online and switcheverything over to the new
system, and I have customersthat will run the old, the new
system for a week or two just tomake sure there's no hiccups,
(09:25):
before they actually shut downthe old equipment.
And then again you don't haveto move the old equipment
because you've set up everythingnew in the new environment.
And then the last thing isanytime you're doing something
like this, you have to have acontingency or a fallback, which
just means that you identify aperson could be the application
(09:45):
owner or whoever it is that ifyou've moved to the new facility
and something's not going rightat some point in time, there's
got to be okay.
You know what it's either a goor no go, and somebody has to be
selected to make that call andsay you know what?
We're four hours in.
We've only got an eight-hour orten-hour window.
It's not working.
Bring it all back, redo, youknow.
(10:08):
Bring the application back upat the old facility and we'll
try again next week or in twoweeks.
So those are the main.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
There's other things, but those are the main things
to me that you need to considerwhen you're doing a migration
from one data center to another.
Well, it all makes logicalsense, really, what you just
described.
Are you seeing that companiesare making mistakes in this area
?
I would imagine, if this issomething that they're in charge
of, that they would know this,but perhaps that's wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Perhaps we do see mistakes being made.
What are the most commonmistakes that you see In my
experience?
And it's they don't, I guess,account for time, and by that I
think everybody's optimisticthat they put a plan down on
paper and everything's going togo according to plan.
And I don't know how many times.
I mean, we're talking to acustomer right now that was
supposed to start a migration asof January.
It hasn't started yet.
(11:05):
It's looking like it's going tobe May or June, and the reason
for that is anytime you're doingsomething like this, you've got
to get buy-off from a lot ofdifferent stakeholders.
There's a lot ofinterdependency, so you have to
have a project manager that'sgoing to ride herd over this,
because it can go sideways veryeasily.
So you've got to have somebodythat's making sure they're on
(11:25):
top of this all the time.
And you just have to assumethat, and I keep saying I used
to work with colleagues of mineand say, okay, the time I have a
project, go completely withoutany hiccups, I'm going to retire
, because that's a good way toretire, because you've got
everything go perfectly, so justexpect that something is going
to happen.
It could be minor, but just beaware that it's probably going
(11:51):
to take a little longer than youexpected or it's not going to
start on time.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Right, so allow yourself extra time and sort of
plan for the worst, but expectthe best, kind of thing.
Yes absolutely Love that.
Okay, let's get into our how-tosection, where we dive a little
bit more into how to do things,where we dive a little bit more
into how to do things.
So, first of all, mark, how tochoose a partner for your
(12:16):
company's data centerdecommissioning needs.
What should a company look for?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So I think the first thing you want to look for is
somebody who has got experiencedoing that.
Regardless of what it is you'relooking at, whatever the
project, you want somebody who'sdone it before, knows what
they're doing and can handle it.
In addition to that, there's alot of regulatory compliance
that goes around decommissioningstuff.
So first you've got it from aninformation security standpoint,
(12:43):
you want to have somebody whohas NAID certification, and NAID
is the National Association ofInformation Destruction and NAID
is the National Association ofInformation Destruction and that
is an organization thatcertifies you because you've
done certain steps to qualifyfor that.
And they also do inspections,unannounced inspections, where
they will come in and check outyour place of business.
(13:05):
They'll also follow your trucksaround to make sure that your
guys are securing everything,locking everything, not leaving
anything unattended.
So that's one thing from a datasecurity perspective.
The other thing is if they haveISO 27001, that's an ISO
standard, again with datasecurity.
It's similar to NADE andthey're going to do similar type
(13:27):
things to verify you.
Both of these certifications arethings that are evaluated on an
annual basis to make sure thatyou're current and you still
pass.
So that's one of the things Iwould look at.
And then, from a environmentalstandpoint, you want to make
sure they have certifications aswell.
So obviously there's the R2V3,which is the responsible
(13:49):
recycling standard, which is notjust affect the company that's
doing it but also any partnersthey deal with downstream.
So I mean if you're a companysay a large bank or a publicly
traded company, and you publishthings on your annual report
about stuff that you've recycledand you hand it off to company
(14:11):
XYZ and they're not R2 certifiedand they just hand it off to
somebody else who disposed of itin landfill, and if that ever
came out, that doesn't look toogood on you.
So you want to make sure thatwhoever you're dealing with, not
only do they handle theequipment and the goods properly
, but when they pass it offdownstream, that company is also
(14:35):
R2 certified and will hand itresponsibly.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, I know Quantum has both NAID, aaa and the R2V3
certifications and I know we areaudited regularly recently
finished our audit season, ifyou will and they are tough
certifications but they make allthe difference from a data
security standpoint as well asenvironmental standpoint.
(15:01):
Mark, what would you say how toget the most out of the data
center equipment in terms ofcircularity, like how to reuse
it, recycle it, anything?
Any tips for companies there?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I think you want to look for a company that has a
lot of downstream partners thatthey can deal with so that there
is an opportunity to remarketeither as an entire piece of
equipment or at a componentlevel within the equipment and,
as well, they also deal withpeople that recycle equipment
and can take it and then reusethe materials in a manufacturing
(15:40):
process down the road.
So that provides you with notonly some money up front, if
there is a remarketingopportunity, but it also ensures
that none of this ends up inlandfill and it's going to be
reused.
It also reduces our dependencyon.
You know they call the rareearth metals and there's a huge
amount of energy that isrequired to mine and to distill
(16:03):
so that you get the exact rareearth that you're looking for.
So those are the main thingsthat I would suggest.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, that's great feedback.
So financial andenvironmentally, that makes
sense.
And yeah, we've actually justdone an analysis at Quantum and
we see 10 of the 34 criticalminerals on the critical
minerals list in Canada comethrough our processes at Quantum
.
So you're doing something greatfor the planet by ensuring your
(16:31):
equipment is reused or recycledresponsibly.
Mark, this has been soinsightful.
I feel like I've learned a lotabout data centers today.
Let's finish off with one pieceof advice which we ask everyone
.
If you could give one piece ofadvice in terms of data center
decommissioning, what would youleave listeners with In terms of
data?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
center decommissioning, what would you
leave listeners with?
I think get a jump on it early,because if you are planning a
decommissioning, especially ifit's the entire data center,
there's an awful lot involved inthat and you've got to schedule
in partners that are going totake out certain pieces of
equipment.
If you're taking out all theinfrastructure, like the raised
(17:18):
floor, that's a long process.
It's probably going to besomebody different from usual,
or you've got to find a companythat will take all that
equipment or all that material.
So the sooner you start on this, give yourself plenty of lead
time before you actually startit, just so you can make sure
you've got everything all yourducks in a row.
Because, as I said, there's alot of moving parts, there's a
lot of interdependency.
So the more detailed planningand it goes for any project for
(17:43):
that matter the more detailedplanning up front, the less
chances something slips throughthe cracks and the better you
are to react to it if you doencounter a hiccup along the way
.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Give yourself time.
Yeah, one thing I've heardtoday is how this is similar to
other types of electronics andtechnology that we would deal
with at Quantum, but at the sametime, there's so many more
complexities here, given theinterdependence with other
systems and the cybersecurityaspect.
So give yourself time.
(18:15):
I think it's amazing advice.
Thank you so much, mark.
Really appreciate you havingyou here.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Thank you, pleasure being here.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
And remember, if you're looking for a partner to
help you repair, reuse andrecycle your electronics,
specifically data centerequipment, we'd love to chat
Head on over toquantumlifecyclecom and contact
us.
This is a Quantum Lifecyclepodcast and the producer is
Sanjay Trivedi.
Thank you for being a CircularFuture champion in your company
(18:44):
and beyond.
Logging off.
Data centers run the backbone of the internet, so how
do we embrace circularity indata centers?
Welcome, to the circular future,your access to thought leaders
and innovations to help you be abusiness sustainability
champion, even if it's not yourcore job.
I'm your host, stephanieMcLarty, head of Sustainability
(00:36):
at Quantum Lifecycle Partners,your trusted partner in
electronics circularity.
In our last episode, number 47,we talked about the
environmental impact ofartificial intelligence and we
touched on the important roledata centers play.
Today, we're doing something alittle bit differently and we're
(00:57):
diving into this specific areaof data centers with a short and
sweet episode.
What does circularity for datacenters look like?
What do we need to know whenthe servers and networking
equipment get to the end oftheir life?
With me is my colleague here atQuantum Lifecycle Partners,
mark Petrie, who is our managerof business development for
(01:21):
what's called SSN Servers,storage and Network, which is
also known as data centers.
Welcome to the podcast, mark.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Good morning.
Thanks for having me, Stephanie.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well excited to dive into this area and I have to
admit we generally talk aboutelectronics as a whole and the
impact around circularity,basically anything with a
battery or a plug.
But today we're diving into thespecific topic of data centers,
which I'm not so versed in, butI know you are.
I first want to start off thisconversation looking at data
(01:56):
centers and really around thedecommissioning of them.
Why do companies choose todecommission their data centers?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So probably the main reason people decommission
equipment within their datacenters is simply because
they're doing a technologyrefresh.
The existing platform hasgotten a bit long in tooth and
it can't keep up with theapplication or the growth in the
application, or it's becomingtoo hard to maintain.
So they just decided to refreshthe technology and replace it
(02:26):
with newer, faster, betterperforming technology.
One of the other reasons theydo it is because they've decided
you know what I really don'twant to be managing all these
applications and all theassociated hardware, so I'm
going to move certainapplications into the cloud.
So they just migrate all ofthat application into the cloud
(02:47):
and then they retire thatequipment.
And then probably the lastreason for equipment is they've
just the application itself hasrun its lifecycle and is now
being retired, so they're goingto let it lapse into obscurity
and just replace that or removethat equipment.
Now there are some cases wherecustomers decide you know what
(03:10):
our core business is retail orpharmaceutical, or banking we
really don't want to be in theIT business in which case they
outsource everything in the datacenter to an outsourcing
company, or perhaps they moveeverything into the cloud.
At that point they're not justgetting rid of equipment in the
data center.
If they decide to repurpose thedata center, they're going to
(03:32):
get rid of all the equipment andthen all the infrastructure
that supports the ITinfrastructure.
So that's the race floor itselfoverhead cabling trays, power
distribution, cooling chillers,backup power.
They may even have diesel powergenerators.
So all of that stuff that wouldnormally be associated with the
data center is now removed.
(03:53):
So those are the main reasonswhy people decide to get out of
the data center business.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Right, and that makes a lot of sense.
And what you've touched on, too, is that there's a lot more
gear there than just the actualservers and the storage
equipment.
It's everything that runs thatdata center.
You mentioned about moving tothe cloud and outsourcing.
Let's dive into that a littlebit deeper.
(04:19):
Why are companies doing that?
Why are they moving from thetraditional data center model to
cloud-based models?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So at the beginning you touched on AI, and that's
one of the big drivers right now, as people are moving to AI.
But, as you know, it requires ahuge amount of power in
addition to regular processors,and because it draws more power,
it also creates more heat.
So then you've got more powerrequirements just to run the
processor and then more powerrequirements for the cooling as
(04:50):
well.
So in some cases it can be alittle difficult for customers,
especially if they're in anenvironment where they don't
have access to more power andthey don't have access to more
cooling and have access to morecooling.
So rather than take on thatchallenge, they've just decided
you know what I'm going to moveto the cloud and let somebody
else, whose business it is torun a data center, to handle
(05:11):
that.
And then the other thing in mymind that plays into this is
cybersecurity.
Everybody right now is paranoidabout getting hacked and
getting held for ransom.
So there's actually companiesout there that will provide that
as a service, but a lot ofpeople are simply moving to the
cloud because now that becomesthe responsibility of the cloud
(05:33):
provider.
Yes, you still have to putcertain things in place on your
end, but by and large.
The majority of theinfrastructure to support your
security is handled by somebodyelse, so you don't need to have
experts in that technology andit's just easier for most people
.
In fact, a lot of smaller andmedium-sized companies are
(05:55):
choosing not to even have datacenters.
They're just going right to thecloud.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Wow yeah, cybersecurity is definitely a
hot topic for everyone, and thatmakes a lot of sense.
Let someone who specializes inthis, who has experts in this,
take care of the certain piecesof equipment, or whether you're
(06:26):
doing a complete refresh or acomplete decommissioning, you
have to think about the businesscontinuity side, to ensure that
you don't lose any importantaccess to documents, files,
emails, even the internet, sincewe're all so dependent on it.
What would you say are thethings that a business needs to
(06:48):
consider in terms of businesscontinuity during a data center
migration?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So there's a number of things.
One of the first things youhave to do is application
mapping.
And to explain that, I mean,let's say you have a web server
that your customers log into andthey select something that
they're going to purchase fromyou, and then they go ahead and
process all that.
That web server could thentransfer that data to another
(07:16):
intermediate server which takesall that data and now makes it
available to your ERP system,which processes the order, a CRM
system, which is how you managea relationship with the
customer, and even potentially,a financial system.
So now you've got potentiallyfive different servers that are
involved in this process, aswell as the networking
infrastructure and the storagebehind it.
(07:38):
So whenever you're movingsomething, you want to make sure
you move all the systemsassociated with an application
at the same time, so there's nodisruption to the application.
Then one of the other thingsyou want to do is when it comes
to scheduling.
You want to rank yourapplications from most critical
to least critical, and thereason you want to do that and
(08:00):
it assumes that you have thetime to move things individually
you want to do the leastcritical things first.
So if you've got to develop anenvironment or you've got a user
acceptance testing environmentor whatever it happens to be.
You want to move that one first, and then what that allows you
to do is to do a postmortem, soif there's any hiccups on the
way, you can identify thosehiccups and make sure that you
(08:22):
smooth them out the next timearound.
It also allows all the people,from both the partner that
you're working with as well asyour own staff, to be familiar
with what their roles andresponsibilities are, so that
the next time they do it it'sbetter.
So by the time you come to themost critical applications,
you've done it a few times.
(08:42):
I'm not going to say it'sroutine, because it's never
routine, but at least you've gotsome experience with it, so
that there's less stress on youwhen you do that.
The other thing I would suggestis that if you're contemplating
a technology refresh, now is theperfect time to do it.
You can stand up the net newenvironment at your new facility
(09:04):
, get it up and running,replicate data from your
existing site to the new site,run both systems in parallel and
then, at such a time as you'recomfortable, you can take the
old system online and switcheverything over to the new
system, and I have customersthat will run the old, the new
system for a week or two just tomake sure there's no hiccups,
(09:25):
before they actually shut downthe old equipment.
And then again you don't haveto move the old equipment
because you've set up everythingnew in the new environment.
And then the last thing isanytime you're doing something
like this, you have to have acontingency or a fallback, which
just means that you identify aperson could be the application
(09:45):
owner or whoever it is that ifyou've moved to the new facility
and something's not going rightat some point in time, there's
got to be okay.
You know what it's either a goor no go, and somebody has to be
selected to make that call andsay you know what?
We're four hours in.
We've only got an eight-hour orten-hour window.
It's not working.
Bring it all back, redo, youknow.
(10:08):
Bring the application back upat the old facility and we'll
try again next week or in twoweeks.
So those are the main.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
There's other things, but those are the main things
to me that you need to considerwhen you're doing a migration
from one data center to another.
Well, it all makes logicalsense, really, what you just
described.
Are you seeing that companiesare making mistakes in this area
?
I would imagine, if this issomething that they're in charge
of, that they would know this,but perhaps that's wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Perhaps we do see mistakes being made.
What are the most commonmistakes that you see In my
experience?
And it's they don't, I guess,account for time, and by that I
think everybody's optimisticthat they put a plan down on
paper and everything's going togo according to plan.
And I don't know how many times.
I mean, we're talking to acustomer right now that was
supposed to start a migration asof January.
It hasn't started yet.
(11:05):
It's looking like it's going tobe May or June, and the reason
for that is anytime you're doingsomething like this, you've got
to get buy-off from a lot ofdifferent stakeholders.
There's a lot ofinterdependency, so you have to
have a project manager that'sgoing to ride herd over this,
because it can go sideways veryeasily.
So you've got to have somebodythat's making sure they're on
(11:25):
top of this all the time.
And you just have to assumethat, and I keep saying I used
to work with colleagues of mineand say, okay, the time I have a
project, go completely withoutany hiccups, I'm going to retire
, because that's a good way toretire, because you've got
everything go perfectly, so justexpect that something is going
to happen.
It could be minor, but just beaware that it's probably going
(11:51):
to take a little longer than youexpected or it's not going to
start on time.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Right, so allow yourself extra time and sort of
plan for the worst, but expectthe best, kind of thing.
Yes absolutely Love that.
Okay, let's get into our how-tosection, where we dive a little
bit more into how to do things,where we dive a little bit more
into how to do things.
So, first of all, mark, how tochoose a partner for your
(12:16):
company's data centerdecommissioning needs.
What should a company look for?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So I think the first thing you want to look for is
somebody who has got experiencedoing that.
Regardless of what it is you'relooking at, whatever the
project, you want somebody who'sdone it before, knows what
they're doing and can handle it.
In addition to that, there's alot of regulatory compliance
that goes around decommissioningstuff.
So first you've got it from aninformation security standpoint,
(12:43):
you want to have somebody whohas NAID certification, and NAID
is the National Association ofInformation Destruction and NAID
is the National Association ofInformation Destruction and that
is an organization thatcertifies you because you've
done certain steps to qualifyfor that.
And they also do inspections,unannounced inspections, where
they will come in and check outyour place of business.
(13:05):
They'll also follow your trucksaround to make sure that your
guys are securing everything,locking everything, not leaving
anything unattended.
So that's one thing from a datasecurity perspective.
The other thing is if they haveISO 27001, that's an ISO
standard, again with datasecurity.
It's similar to NADE andthey're going to do similar type
(13:27):
things to verify you.
Both of these certifications arethings that are evaluated on an
annual basis to make sure thatyou're current and you still
pass.
So that's one of the things Iwould look at.
And then, from a environmentalstandpoint, you want to make
sure they have certifications aswell.
So obviously there's the R2V3,which is the responsible
(13:49):
recycling standard, which is notjust affect the company that's
doing it but also any partnersthey deal with downstream.
So I mean if you're a companysay a large bank or a publicly
traded company, and you publishthings on your annual report
about stuff that you've recycledand you hand it off to company
(14:11):
XYZ and they're not R2 certifiedand they just hand it off to
somebody else who disposed of itin landfill, and if that ever
came out, that doesn't look toogood on you.
So you want to make sure thatwhoever you're dealing with, not
only do they handle theequipment and the goods properly
, but when they pass it offdownstream, that company is also
(14:35):
R2 certified and will hand itresponsibly.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, I know Quantum has both NAID, aaa and the R2V3
certifications and I know we areaudited regularly recently
finished our audit season, ifyou will and they are tough
certifications but they make allthe difference from a data
security standpoint as well asenvironmental standpoint.
(15:01):
Mark, what would you say how toget the most out of the data
center equipment in terms ofcircularity, like how to reuse
it, recycle it, anything?
Any tips for companies there?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I think you want to look for a company that has a
lot of downstream partners thatthey can deal with so that there
is an opportunity to remarketeither as an entire piece of
equipment or at a componentlevel within the equipment and,
as well, they also deal withpeople that recycle equipment
and can take it and then reusethe materials in a manufacturing
(15:40):
process down the road.
So that provides you with notonly some money up front, if
there is a remarketingopportunity, but it also ensures
that none of this ends up inlandfill and it's going to be
reused.
It also reduces our dependencyon.
You know they call the rareearth metals and there's a huge
amount of energy that isrequired to mine and to distill
(16:03):
so that you get the exact rareearth that you're looking for.
So those are the main thingsthat I would suggest.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, that's great feedback.
So financial andenvironmentally, that makes
sense.
And yeah, we've actually justdone an analysis at Quantum and
we see 10 of the 34 criticalminerals on the critical
minerals list in Canada comethrough our processes at Quantum
.
So you're doing something greatfor the planet by ensuring your
(16:31):
equipment is reused or recycledresponsibly.
Mark, this has been soinsightful.
I feel like I've learned a lotabout data centers today.
Let's finish off with one pieceof advice which we ask everyone
.
If you could give one piece ofadvice in terms of data center
decommissioning, what would youleave listeners with In terms of
data?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
center decommissioning, what would you
leave listeners with?
I think get a jump on it early,because if you are planning a
decommissioning, especially ifit's the entire data center,
there's an awful lot involved inthat and you've got to schedule
in partners that are going totake out certain pieces of
equipment.
If you're taking out all theinfrastructure, like the raised
(17:18):
floor, that's a long process.
It's probably going to besomebody different from usual,
or you've got to find a companythat will take all that
equipment or all that material.
So the sooner you start on this, give yourself plenty of lead
time before you actually startit, just so you can make sure
you've got everything all yourducks in a row.
Because, as I said, there's alot of moving parts, there's a
lot of interdependency.
So the more detailed planningand it goes for any project for
(17:43):
that matter the more detailedplanning up front, the less
chances something slips throughthe cracks and the better you
are to react to it if you doencounter a hiccup along the way
.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Give yourself time.
Yeah, one thing I've heardtoday is how this is similar to
other types of electronics andtechnology that we would deal
with at Quantum, but at the sametime, there's so many more
complexities here, given theinterdependence with other
systems and the cybersecurityaspect.
So give yourself time.
(18:15):
I think it's amazing advice.
Thank you so much, mark.
Really appreciate you havingyou here.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Thank you, pleasure being here.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
And remember, if you're looking for a partner to
help you repair, reuse andrecycle your electronics,
specifically data centerequipment, we'd love to chat
Head on over toquantumlifecyclecom and contact
us.
This is a Quantum Lifecyclepodcast and the producer is
Sanjay Trivedi.
Thank you for being a CircularFuture champion in your company
(18:44):
and beyond.
Logging off.
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