What to do with Redundant IT equipment?
Organizations are looking at ways to cut costs as the global recession takes hold. While businesses rely heavily on technology and need to keep abreast of new developments, many of them are wastefully spending their money on updating IT infrastructure, by discarding what they think is useless. This article discusses how business organizations and their clients, can expand the lifespan of their IT infrastructure, thus saving costs while also ensuring the security of sensitive data.
Businesses worldwide spend billions on updating their IT and telephone infrastructure each year. While these organizations and their clients feel they need to dispose of outdated equipment to keep-up with the latest IT developments, there are other options available. For this, organizations need to look at end-of-life equipment as assets.
This redundant equipment can be used to extract precious metals like gold, copper and platinum. But for professionals and their clients, its true value lies in reusing it. So, businesses should consider launching an ‘asset management’ programme.
A well thought out asset management programme will lead to the equipment being re-used, either by the disposing company or by another third party organization.
Organizations should, in conjunction with the asset management partner, undertake an appraisal of the redundant equipment to define its condition. Components and software should also be evaluated to see which parts are suitable for re-use. Following this, they can take one of three routes; refurbishment of the units, re-marketing of the units or the destruction of the redundant equipment for security reasons.
Refurbishment can expand the lifespan of old IT equipment by up to three times, meaning that equipment which would have been discarded can be used again by the disposing organization. The old equipment should be electronically data purged to ensure that any information previously held is removed. The units can then be refurbished to ‘as new’ status which can include the replacement of broken parts, cleaning of the system, reloading software and programs and setting the unit.
Should the disposing organization no longer have a need for the equipment, the units should be re-used. In this case, a re-marketing programme would be the best option. This creates a way for the disposing organization to make money from the redundant equipment, which can be used to offset the cost of maintaining the IT infrastructure or used as the organization wishes.
For organizations, concerned about security, the only option in this case will be full destruction of the equipment, breaking it down to pieces and ensuring that the information can never be used by anyone again.