Some of the more common themes running through the IT world these days surround virtualization, consolidation, migration, power consumption, etc.   No matter what “tion” you are considering, as an IT organization, you are missing the boat if you have not included your existing IT equipment values into the equation.    A typical virtualization effort, for example, can be driven by a number of factors: maximize limited data center space, save power, creation of a private cloud, app flexibility – just to name a few.   In larger server environments, it is also typical that the oldest servers are the first physical servers to be virtualized into fewer, newer ones.   

Some people may be saying to themselves “Sounds right,” but unless there is an extenuating circumstance, this is backwards thinking.   A cost conscious IT professional would first assess the current market value of their servers.   That same wise person would then plan to virtualize the newest, and often times, most valuable servers first if possible.   Why would they do this?  

Quite simply, they know that IT depreciates rapidly.   They would do this because they can sell the more valuable servers for far more today than they can tomorrow.   They would do this because they know they can use the resulting dollars to offset (and potentially pay for) their virtualization effort.  They would also do this because they know their CFO will let them do what they want going forward, because they are smart with the company’s money.  

In summary, it is wise to know the current value of your infrastructure; not just the book value but the actual value as well.  After all, like most inventory, IT in the rack is really just depreciating dollars on the shelf.  Use this strategy to your advantage the next time you make a major IT move, and you will increase your bottom line without your data center going end of life.