It’s been a difficult year and a half….well, that’s an understatement. The explosion in demand for new tech to accommodate the sudden shift to remote work, the shuttering of factories, and the process of restarting these factories and opening up the supply chain again has led to the current silicon chip shortage.

Now, as the long-term fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more and more evident, CEOs of major suppliers are predicting that the current Silicon shortage is predicted to impact both the availability and the price of IT hardware for the next year to a year and a half. Currently, orders are being cancelled with no relief on the horizon.

Maybe it’s time to turn some lemons into lemonade? As a response to the hardware shortage, the used hardware industry is, apparently, soaring and decommissioned gear is flying off the shelves. This makes me think: how many unnecessary IT purchases does your organization make because of a lack of information? How many of your assets aren’t fully decommissioned?

How much money could you save by avoiding buying assets you already have and reusing equipment? Would better capacity planning help?

The netTerrain platform can help you to:

  • Identify Underutilized Equipment
  • Fully decommission equipment and connections
  • Plan effectively for future capacity

Identify Underutilized Equipment

Why not utilize some of the existing equipment you already have, instead of purchasing new equipment. Remember that Dell PowerEdge server that you purchased two years ago? Well, its sitting in your data center idle, while consuming power and valuable rack space. How can you check to see if your equipment is what we consider a zombie server?

Zombie server…? A zombie server is a server that is physically running but has no external communications or visibility and contributes no compute resources. It consumes power but serves no useful purpose.

With netTerrain Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)’s Environmental Monitoring (EM) Module, which is included with netTerrain DCIM, you can easily identify these underutilized servers.

Identify underutilized servers in netTerrain EM

You can either decommission them and replace them or reuse them and avoid unnecessary expenditures. Which leads to my next bullet item.

Fully decommission equipment and connections

Since you have identified your underutilized servers with netTerrain EM, you can start the process of decommissioning the devices and its connections. netTerrain provides work order tasks to help you manage the decommissioning process. From assigning users to disconnect the power connections (make sure to disconnect the entire cable from one port to another port, so you don’t have any zombie cables (cable plugged into one port and not to another)), to turning down the equipment, pulling the power, and finally removing the equipment from the rack.

Plan effectively for future capacity

One of the key aspects for having a DCIM solution is managing the data center capacity: space, power, weight, ports, etc. Going back to netTerrain EM Module, it can calculate and report on current consumption and remaining capacity of power equipment. netTerrain DCIM search capabilities can provide optimal placement of new equipment by specifying power, space, weight, and port availability.

With its dashboard reports, can you forecast and plan for future resource needs, manage the changes with work orders tasks (equipment moves, adds, and changes), and view reports to see when the data center will reach capacity.

In conclusion, if you’re ready to save money and put a stop to unnecessary IT expenditures, DCIM software such as netTerrain DCIM can help. Fully decommission your assets, hunt down underutilized assets, and plan better for capacity. If you’d like to test-drive netTerrain, or just have a couple questions, click here to schedule a very brief discovery call with us.

About Fred Koh

As a seasoned sales executive, Fred Koh serves as Director of Sales and is responsible for Graphical Networks sales and channel partner program, marketing strategy, and operations.