Decommissioning

Decommissioning removes systems, integrations, accounts, and data safely. A system is not retired when traffic stops; it is retired when risk, cost, access, and evidence obligations are closed.

Decommissioning checklist

Confirm:

• Owner approves retirement.
• Traffic and usage are zero or intentionally redirected.
• Dependencies and consumers are removed.
• Data retention and deletion requirements are met.
• Backups and archives are handled.
• DNS, certificates, routes, and firewall rules are removed.
• Secrets, tokens, and service accounts are revoked.
• Alerts, dashboards, and runbooks are updated.
• Cost allocation and inventory records are closed.

Retirement flow

Evidence

Keep evidence of:

• Approval and communication.
• Final usage check.
• Data export, retention, or deletion.
• Resource removal.
• Access revocation.
• Cost closure.

Watchouts

• Forgotten DNS or credentials can become security exposure.
• Retired systems may still have compliance retention obligations.
• Shared dependencies can hide remaining consumers.
• Decommissioning should reduce monitoring noise and cost, not only remove compute.