New IBM services are geared towards assisting enterprises in optimizing their IT infrastructure, minimizing energy usage, allocating aging or underutilized IT resources, and establishing data-erasure strategies.
IBM is enhancing its range of sustainability offerings with innovative services aimed at helping clients reduce data-center energy usage and dispose of obsolete equipment and redundant data securely.
The Technology Lifecycle Services group at IBM has introduced three additional services to its sustainability inventory: Sustainability Optimization Assessment, Asset Recovery and Disposition, and Data Erasure Services.
A significant number of enterprises are overhauling and consolidating data-center hardware, migration of on-prem data centers to colocation facilities or the cloud for enhancing efficiencies, and improving workload performance, according to Dylan Boday, vice president, technology lifecycle services product management at IBM. He noted in a blog post that cost savings, increased efficiency, enhanced security, and environmental responsibility are among the motivators for refreshing or consolidating data center hardware and transitioning towards wider data center optimization.
According to an IDC sustainability study, referenced by Boday, “75% of organizations surveyed view sustainability and circularity as paramount considerations in their IT equipment procurement processes.”
The global regulation in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has seen a 155% rise over the past ten years, Boday noted. There is growing pressure for corporations to map out strategies to attain compliance. Achieving environmental objectives often results in IT resource optimization, which favorably affects operational expenses. In the IDC study, approximately 40% of line-of-business managers expected to improve or already improved their financial performance due to investments made towards sustainability.
To assist these efforts, a survey on a client’s data center environment is conducted by IBM’s Sustainability Optimization Assessment to identify IT optimization needs and necessary hardware upgrades. This service provides a strategic plan to consolidate and or substitute hosts.
IBM’s AI-based service, Turbonomic, is employed by the service to propose sustainability objectives throughout the data center life cycle. IBM Turbonomic is a platform for cost and performance optimization for public, private, and hybrid clouds. It advises customers on the optimal methods to build efficient computational resources and prevent overprovisioning.
IBM Asset Recovery and Disposition is a new service aimed to assist data-center customers in managing outdated or unnecessary assets, like servers or storage. The service includes removal of equipment, valuation, and subsequent resale or recycling of these assets. The primary objective is to endorse a circular economy for the decommissioned assets, offering an economically sustainable and environmentally friendly solution, Boday expressed.
The concept of a circular economy is built on a model that strives to eliminate waste through reuse, repair, remanufacture, and refurbish objectives, keeping the devices and assets in use for as long as possible. This concept differs from the traditional linear economy, where resources are extracted, used, and disposed of. As per an article in Computerworld, “The circular economy places emphasis on reduction of waste, promotes reuse and recycling, and pushes for the design of products that are long-lasting and sustainable. It is becoming increasingly popular within IT circles as a method to combat environmental concerns, decrease e-waste and encourage sustainability,” as stated in the article.
IBM also launched a third service directed towards aiding data-center customers in securely eliminating and sanitizing uneeded data from IT hardware and devices. This Data Erasure service is made possible through a partnership with Blancco Software Technology.
IBM technicians, who are Blancco data-erasure software-certified, collaborate with clients in developing a data erasure strategy by evaluating their environments and assets, Boday highlighted. “Upon completion of the erasure services, customers are provided with a tamper-proof certificate of erasure that is tailored to their needs. This certificate provides evidence of proper data handling at the end of life, allowing them to redeploy, resell, or donate their data storage assets,” Boday mentioned.
The updated sustainability services enhance the already available services offered by IBM Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS). Such services consist of media retention services, infrastructure optimization, hardware removal and installation packages, and other logistical help.
The fresh IBM services are accessible now and can be bought individually or as part of an all-inclusive IBM TLS package.