IT departments across America are adapting to new logistical challenges from disrupted supply chains to curbing carbon emissions. This has made businesses across the globe rethink their approach to data center hardware maintenance and recommit to sustainability efforts. These businesses find that moving from a traditional linear economy to a circular economy is beneficial both from a financial and sustainability perspective.
To define a circular economy, picture a model of production and consumption which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. The process itself establishes a more sustainable production and consumption model in which raw materials are kept longer in production cycles and can be used repeatedly, ultimately generating much less waste.
Third-party maintenance fits within this circular economy by promoting recommendations that keep assets in service for as long as possible. The concept involves fixing hardware with genuine OEM parts and supporting End of Service Life (EOSL) equipment, which extends the life of your data center IT infrastructure, specifically during a cloud migration period.
For example, ReluTech helped an energy customer save 80% on their overall maintenance for their EOSL data center equipment avoiding a hardware refresh. ReluTech not only helped this customer migrate to the cloud at a lower operating cost, but even helped them make an unexpected profit on their legacy hardware. More importantly, the customer was able to stay true to their environmental pledge by reducing their carbon footprint, as well as proving their loyalty to their customers by ensuring that all sensitive data was properly erased and safe from potential hackers.
Third-party maintenance is inherently sustainable; it fits into this circular economy by promoting hardware recommendations that keep assets in use for as long as possible. The concept involves fixing hardware with genuine OEM parts and supporting End of Service Life (EOSL) equipment, which extends the life of your data center IT infrastructure.
In contrast, many companies with data centers follow a linear economy, a take-make-dispose model. OEMs acquire natural resources, take them to manufacturing plants, make them into data center assets which are sold through the channel to end users as often as possible. When the customer is done with the hardware (usually every 2-4 years due to planned obsolescence) they dispose of it.
People are more environmentally conscious than ever before and have started incorporating their personal values when creating corporate sustainability initiatives. It’s becoming more commonplace to build IT budget strategies around the idea of sustainability and to adopt independent maintenance services into their workflow.
Third-party maintenance providers offer vendor-neutral recommendations for refurbished hardware options that can keep your business running. OEMs would prefer to sell the next new product on the assembly line, but third-party maintenance services extend the life of IT equipment in the data center past their EOSL date, saving businesses thousands in hardware replacement costs.
In addition to reducing unnecessary IT costs, a circular economy supported by third-party maintenance also helps the environment. By extending the life of data center equipment, third-party maintenance cuts down e-waste destined for a landfill, which contributes to the negative effects of climate change.
Third-party maintenance combats the OEM from having a monopoly on hardware options and puts the power back into the customer’s hands. ReluTech is committed to the circular economy and combating the planned obsolescence of data center hardware by helping customers reduce overall IT expenditure, increase production, and adopt more sustainable hardware maintenance practices.
