Securing a smooth landing for Cisco Refresh at the Ministry of Defence

Cost Saving

$15m

Achieved by using remanufactured hardware through Cisco Refresh

Minimal Disruption

3 Years

Battle readiness and operations could be extended without the need of a lengthy refit.

tCO2e Saved

71.60

By using Cisco Refresh. That's the equivalent of a F-35B Lightning II fighter jet flying nearly twice around the world.

The customer

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) works to protect the UK's people, territories, values and interests at home and overseas. The MoD's organisational structure encompasses the UK's three armed forces: the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force.

Mission briefing

Cisco technology is used in some of the most secure and demanding environments in the world, including the high seas.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) needed to increase capacity across seven datacentres based on aircraft carriers across the globe.

However, location was only part of the challenge. Their existing platform made use of Cisco technology which had reached end of sale, making it difficult for the client to source replacement equipment directly from Cisco.

Facing the possibility of length and expensive upgrades that would impact battle readiness, they turned to us for our unique understanding of the remanufactured market.

Hard to source parts

The parts that needed replacing had reached end of sale, meaning Cisco we're unable to supply then with like-for-like new ones. This meant a costly refit with new hardware

Minimal disruption

Refitting a data centre with new parts would take the aircraft carriers out of action. The solution needed to have minimal impact on battle readiness. 

All hands on deck

From the word go it was all hands on deck. Working in close collaboration with the client we analysed their network requirements in depth. Armed with this insight, we then used our unique knowledge of the used Cisco market to source those hard to find, end of life components.

Through our status as a Cisco Circular Economy Partner, we were able to pass them back to Cisco for remanufacturing. These remanufactured components were then used to put together a resilient end-to-end solution under the Cisco Refresh brand.

This blend of new, remanufactured and reused technology was then distributed to the nearest port to each aircraft carrier, ready to be moved onboard for installation.

Successful landing

Instead of implementing a timely and costly complete hardware refresh, we were able to extend the life-span of the existing platform for a further three years with minimal disruption to battle readiness. 

The remanufacturing process didn’t just allow us to deliver at speed but also allowed us to save the MoD money. $15m was saved by using Cisco Refresh and a further 1.8 tonnes of ewaste was avoided. In total, they saved 71.6 tCO2e by using Cisco Refresh instead of new, a 69% saving.

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