Insights from Data Center World 2019 (DCW)

What is Data Center World?

As the folks at Data Center World (DCW) say themselves: the data center is an integral part of the DNA of any business. IT operations professionals, datacenter facilities directors, executives, and more come to DCW, which is the largest conference specifically designed for those who design, build, and manage data centers.

Sipi Asset Recovery is both a sponsor and exhibitor at the annual event. It’s important for us to network with executives and data center professionals from around the country, sharing insights about asset lifecycle services within the data center environment, as well as data destruction within those 4 walls. Phoenix, AZ — where the conference was held this year – is a rapidly growing market for IT infrastructure, making the location appropriate to the trends we noticed while attending.

What changed for data center professionals this year?

Since we began attending the Data Center World conference 3 years ago, the breadth of capabilities that the marketplace is offering to data center professionals continues to grow. Everything from cooling solutions to designing/building data centers all the way to IT asset inventory services is covered. Other solutions that were a focus include human capital, outsourcing, and of course — security solutions (both physical and asset based.)

What were the biggest challenges for data center professionals?

Specific to IT asset disposition, we noticed three recurring topics in our conversations.

1. Data Security. This is a huge focus for data center professionals today, and we expect this concern will continue to grow in importance. Best practices that are specific, unique, and differentiated to data centers was a very common theme. In addition, executives and leadership are increasingly concerned about 100% data sanitization and destruction within the 4 walls of the data center, and the ability to easily get the status of any asset in the inventory at any time within the environment.
2. Logistics and Decommissioning. When it comes to data centers’ move to cloud computing environments, we’re not at the end — we’re right in the teeth of it. Organizations are working hard on their cloud strategies and building infrastructure around that through 3^rd party providers. From an ITAD perspective, they’re concerned about decommission of legacy IT assets during the move to a cloud-based infrastructure. In addition to this, cloud providers themselves are taking increased responsibility for these legacy disposition needs — and understanding the options available to them that will ensure their clients dispose of their legacy assets properly.
3. Partnership. Data center professionals are very concerned about having true partnerships in place with the right providers to ensure the needs of #1 and #2 are met.

How Sipi can help with data center IT asset disposition and inventory management

We value our customers in the data center space greatly; in fact, the importance of this market grows for us with each passing year. Whether you attended the conference — or would like to continue the conversation about ITAD solutions — please contact me directly! You can also contact us online or give our team a call. Sipi Asset Recovery is a global provider and our wide experience across industries — which includes specialization in data center environments — will empower us to serve your needs in a unique way. Most importantly, we view our relationships with our data center clients as true, long-term partnerships.