At the heart of Sustainable Computing is reuse. Now before you start thinking of dusty old IT hardware, servers or networking equipment that may give out at any time, think again. Refurbished servers, networking equipment and IT hardware can outlast your software and save your company money.
Reused IT assets are essentially ‘gently used’ hardware, equipment and technology that has been cleaned, tested, repackaged, and in some cases had parts replaced, to restore it to a quality condition. There are several quality refurbished IT resellers available. Their standards of refurbishment are so high that in most cases, manufacturers will re-certify it. In short, IT refurbishment enables you to literally increase the yield and useful life of your company’s IT investment and improve overall IT asset manageability. Quality, 100% guarantees, and reputation, all at a fraction of the cost of purchasing new equipment.

For example, a company wanting to upgrade their used Cisco equipment might sell this equipment to a company specializing in refurbished servers, hardware and other IT equipment. This company cleans all of the parts, thoroughly tests the equipment to ensure it meets OEM guidelines of operation – some pieces may need to be replaced, the equipment is packaged in a static free dust bag, sealed, bar coded, and inventoried for resale.
Now this same company wants to upgrade their used Cisco equipment to keep up with their IT needs. As the company looks to upgrade, they discover this company has the refurbished server they need in inventory. Knowing it comes with a warranty and it’s from a reputable company, they purchase and implement the upgrade at up to 60% off the cost of a new server. Selling older equipment for cash, purchasing upgrades and doing it all for a fraction of the cost. This is what sustainable computing is all about.

Fulfillment of corporate social responsibility, combined with recognition of asset value and bottom line revenue is fueling reuse and refurbishment. Businesses are becoming savvier buyers as refurbished IT equipment continues to become a better fiscal option.
How to Avoid Forced Upgrades and Extend the Life of Your Existing Systems: Every manufacturer will update their operating system or hardware at one point or another, often pushing upgrades long before the equipment has reached the end of its life, and in many cases long before you, the customer, are ready to migrate. In some instances, manufacturers can’t or won’t supply the required equipment in your existing infrastructure. For example, you may have six servers and require a seventh one, however, the manufacturer tells you it is only possible to get the latest version of that server with a new and different specification and a newer version of the operating system. This disrupts the homogeneity of your existing environment, forcing you to upgrade before you’re ready and costing you money.
Purchasing sustainable or refurbished IT hardware enables you to custom order quality refurbished equipment at price points that just aren’t available elsewhere, as well as sell (yes, sell for money) your outgoing existing equipment for profit.

FACT: On average, vendors/OEMs promote upgrades every three years.

FACT: Refurbished IT equipment delivers up to 60% savings on initial hardware investment.

FACT: Refurbished IT equipment is custom configured to individual specifications.

FACT: Refurbished IT equipment is fully cleaned, tested and shipped with next day availability and in most instances is eligible for vendor or third party maintenance.

How to Profit by Selling Your End of Life IT Equipment:

When IT equipment becomes redundant or reaches the end of its useful life, it still has commercial value. Rather than giving or throwing away valuable assets, profit from this unused equipment by selling it to reputable IT equipment refurbishment specialists. Refurbished IT providers will pay fair market value on excess or end of life hardware and equipment is purchased on an ‘as is’ asis.

This eliminates environmental disposal concerns about how IT equipment must be disposed of responsibly, and refurbished IT providers can take this headache away from you by giving you fair market value for your outgoing equipment – yes cash.
The current economy has most organizations scrutinizing their IT spend. Sustainable computing through reputable IT refurbishment dealers can provide cash for your company, necessary IT upgrades at a fraction of the cost of new, warranties, and an environmentally friendly means of disposing of unwanted hardware.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_Keister

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6278169

For too long there has been no option for consumers to dispose of their old computers or electronic equipment other than to leave it on the front verge, where in most cases it ends up in landfill.  With a recent announcement by WA Environment Minister Bill Marmion, residents in Western Australia will have the ability to take their e-waste to a number of depots in Metro and non metropolitan areas across the state where the equipment will be recycled in an environmentally responsible manner.  The WA State Government will fund up to 50% of costs involved with the transport and handling of e-waste, which will result in more accessible and cheaper services than there have been to date.

Electronic waste includes anything from television sets, mobile phones, computers, mp3 players, and small appliances.  There are high amounts of hazardous substances contained within electronic equipment, such as lead, mercury, cadmium and beryllium as well as chlorinated solvents, flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).  When e-waste is disposed of in landfill, these toxic substances can leach into the environment and make their way into the air, soils and water, harming plant,  animal and human life.

Although there are many IT Disposal and E-waste collection services available to businesses, it is the consumer programs that have historically had a long way to go in this country, in that recycling services have to date been inaccessible to consumers.  How many monitors old computers or TV’s do you see dumped on the side of the road? – Hopefully with new initiatives like the one announced by the WA government, that will soon be a thing of the past.

So, who’s responsibility is it to solve the E-waste problem? The Government, Manufacturers or the End-User?

You would think that those who make the goods, define the short equipment  life cycles and generally contribute to the e-waste problem should be tasked with the solution.  The government has looked to the industry to come up with answers, and in the past few years, some retailers and manufacturers have been working collectively come up with solutions or programs that make it easier for consumers to recycle their electronic waste, but unfortunately not all manufacturers are on the same page as today there are still significant costs involved to properly recycle e-waste.  With the implementation of a national e-waste strategy up to three years away and state initiatives already under way,  the government has finally stepped in.

Educating consumers is also a very important step, especially raising awareness about the harmful toxins within electronic equipment, but in order to reduce the E-waste problem, there needs to be an easy way for people to access recycling services. Unfortunately some manufacturers still see this as a cost they wish to avoid.

Perhaps there should be a new product rating system which not only looks at energy efficiency, but takes a “whole of lifecycle” approach, which gives a higher sustainability rating to those companies that do the right thing by designing energy efficient, environmentally sustainable equipment, have sustainable supply chains and also offer a take-back service.  This may help consumers choose to purchase the more sustainable products.

According to Environment Minister Bill Marmion, “With increasing production and demand for electronic products such as televisions and computers, e-waste is growing three times faster than any other waste stream”. With millions of computers already heading to landfill every year, something has to be done. Thanks WA for taking the lead, here’s hoping the rest will follow suit.

Visit this Site for information on the WA e-waste reduction program “Towards Zero Waste”  including drop off locations across WA.

The Carmine Group offers Green IT and IT Disposal solutions to government, corporate and enterprise clients across Australia.

Sign up to our newsletter to receive a monthly download of our blog posts and articles.

Although a safe way to transport goods, Polystyrene is definitely not safe in landfill.

When opening up your brand new PC, printer or monitor have you ever been annoyed with the enormous amount of packaging that comes with it?  Plastic bags, cardboard, boxes within boxes and the worst of them all, Expanded Polystyrene (EPS).  You almost always end up with more packaging than product.

Most times the cardboard box can be re-used, perhaps to put your old IT equipment into when sending it off to be properly disposed by your trusty IT disposal vendor, but what to do with the rest?

EPS becomes a waste material that companies must pay to dispose of.  Most of the time, it ends up in the general waste skip bin.  Large, bulky pieces of polystyrene can take up a significant amount of space in a waste skip which means the skip needs to be emptied more often –resulting in higher costs.

With sustainable practices fast becoming part of the decision criteria for purchasing new IT products, manufacturers are making efforts to innovate and design “greener” packaging.  Whether it be reducing the size of the box so as to maximize space on shelves or in the truck when transporting their products around, or using environmentally friendly materials and fillers such as the corn starch pellets you sometimes see, which are non-toxic and 100% biodegradable.  Another popular filler is the air pocket design, which is made up of sections of air-filled “pillows” which cushion your product and protect it from damage in transit. When popped, the cushions leave a tiny plastic bag which in most cases can be recycled.

So, why do we still see so much polystyrene?

There may be an explanation for why new products still arrive with more polystyrene than equipment, but the problem is that product manufacturers, although contributing to the problem, rarely provide a solution for recycling of polystyrene.  More often than not, Polystyrene ends up in landfill, where it will stay for centuries.

Proper recycling of polystyrene is often difficult and expensive.  The size of the product compared to its weight means that it takes up more valuable space in the truck, and hence transport costs increase.  There are very few waste disposal companies that can properly recycle the product. By combining packaging recycling and IT Disposal in the same collection, costs to transport and dispose polystyrene are significantly reduced.

Unfortunate but true, most companies put recycling of polystyrene in the too-hard basket and leave it with the customer to determine what to do.

If your organization is concerned about waste going to landfill, there are solutions available for recycling of polystyrene.  Contact us if you would like to talk about how The Carmine Group can advise you on your disposal needs.

About Polystyrene

• Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) is comprised of 98% air.
• EPS is derived from a non-renewable resource – oil.
• Polystyrene is a type of plastic.
• Polystyrene, through the right processes can be recycled.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Data security is an important step in your IT Disposal process to ensure the privacy of your confidential data, however when we say data security, we don’t mean the disk wipe.

Data security starts at the time your machines are decommissioned and before they leave your premises.  Unless you employ an IT Disposal process which involves a controlled chain of custody with documented processes, the type of disk wipe solution you choose will not matter if you leave your hardware exposed to theft while being stored or don’t take strict precautions to minimize loss during transit.

A chain of custody involves audit-able and documented process steps in your IT disposal process which includes having sign-off points at each handover of your IT Equipment, ensuring that the computer equipment identified for disposal are secure at all times.  Assets which are to be disposed should be located in a secure area and not left in an unattended loading bay, car park or corridor.  Before handing over your assets to a delivery driver, ensure a piece count is performed against an asset list and that piece count matches up with the documentation the driver has.  If there is any discrepancy, ensure it is noted on both sets of documentation.  Ensure that your documentation includes the name of the person who handed over the equipment (and performed the piece count) and the name of the delivery driver.

The same process should be employed by your IT Disposal partner.  When unloading equipment, they should first take note of any damage to the items, especially any damage to the packaging.  Taking pictures of any damage as it comes off the truck will help if any claims to the transport company are to be made.  A piece count of the received assets should be performed before the driver leaves, and checked against the consignment note.  Any discrepancies should be noted and escalated immediately.

By having a record and check-point at each handover stage in your IT Disposal process, the risk of errors are minimized and if something does go astray, the problem can be identified and dealt with much faster, reducing any impact to your business.  I have seen customers, transport companies and IT Disposal vendors chase “missing” assets for weeks only to identify later that the items were never handed over by the customer in the first place.  A simple piece count at each stage would have picked up the error and avoided the stress for everyone involved.

At times unforseen problems can occur and it is the way that the problems are addressed and the speed in which they are solved which could mean the difference between having a significant business impact, or just being a small problem which can be avoided in future.  Ensure your IT Disposal vendor can produce evidence which gives you confidence in their process concerning how assets are being stored, transported and quarantined separately from other stock until they are sanitized.

When processing large volumes of assets, unless there are tightly controlled procedures in place, it is possible to miss a machine or a drive during the disk wipe process.  Ask your IT Disposal vendor to explain to you what systemic and manual indicators they employ to ensure accuracy and how they audit their own processes to minimize risk.  A visit to their processing facility is highly recommended.

The Carmine Group specialise in designing secure and robust IT Disposal solutions for clients with a focus on data security, chain of custody and transparency.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Following on from a previous post about disk wipe methods, we thought it would be useful to review the various data security methods being employed by organisations today and provide a little more information about the pros and cons of each.

So, what is disk overwriting?

Overwriting is a sanitization method used by most disk wipe software these days.  The process entails literally overwriting all existing data with either 1’s 0’s or any random pattern of binary characters.  This disk wipe process attempts to overwrite every sector of your drive with this new random data, to reduce the ability of the data which resides beneath to be read.  The process can usually take between 30 minutes and 2 hours and sometimes much longer depending on the size of your disk, the specifications of your IT hardware and how many bad sectors you may have on your hard drive.

To understand how the overwrite process works, think of a typed page of text and printing over that entire page with random characters.  Pretty difficult to read what’s underneath, but if you had enough time & patience, you could probably make sense of at least a few sentences.

Take this image on the left, look at it quickly and you see some jumbled text, however look closely and you may see something about a quick fox.

The same concept is associated with a disk overwrite.  Although difficult, it is not impossible to recover some data once a disk wipe has been performed once.  The concept of multiple disk wipes is that the more times a disk has been overwritten, the data becomes even more difficult to read.

Data recovery after a disk wipe using an industry standard overwrite method is however difficult.  Rather than reading a bunch of scrambled copy on a page, to retrieve data from a hard disk which has been overwritten takes sophisticated equipment and a considerable amount of time.

The industry standard and what is most commonly recommended by government agencies and service providers around the world is a three pass disk overwrite, where binary code is overwritten three times with verification. This is sometimes referred to as a “US DOD” wipe, which relates to a data sanitization standard which is recommended by the US Department of Defence.

If you are considering a 5 pass disk wipe, 7 pass or even more; you may also want to consider destroying the disks, as such a high volume disk wipe may cost you more in man-hours than the cost of a new hard drive.

Some disk wipe software which performs a disk overwrite cannot access the hidden sectors in hard drives such as the HPA or so-called G-lists, and if your hard drive contains bad sectors, those sectors of the drive will be omitted during the wipe.  If your organisation is concerned about ensuring all data is gone, you may want to consider a no-tolerance policy on bad sectors and destroying those drives which have bad sectors show up during the disk wipe.  Talk to your service provider and find out which disk wipe tools they use.  It is recommended that you perform your own research and evaluation to ensure the tools used meet your organisation’s security standards.

Secure Erase

Built into the firmware of all hard drives manufactured since 2001 is a data purging command which when activated, will purge all of the data that resides on the drive, including hidden sectors. When a Secure Erase is issued against a solid state drive, all its cells will be marked as empty, restoring it to factory default settings.  The procedure actually performs a disk wipe internally within the hard drive.  No verification is needed because the writing occurs from within the drive, meaning the drive’s write fault detection prevents any misses. This makes Secure Erase very fast compared to other data sanitization methods.  Once a hard drive has been erased with a program that utilizes Secure Erase firmware commands, no file recover program, partition recovery program, or other data recovery method will be able to extract data from the drive.  The Secure Erase disk wipe method is therefore considered to be more efficient than a traditional disk overwrite method, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s NIST Special Publication 800-88.

To degauss a disk, it needs to be removed from the computer or server and inserted into a machine which de-magnetises the disk, rendering it un-readable.  Degaussing also happens to make the disk un-usable, hence if you are degaussing and you lease your equipment and need to return it in good working condition, you will be up for the cost of a new disk too.  There is evidence to suggest that degaussing is less effective due to hard drive density increasing at such a rapid rate.  Another concern with degaussing is that if performing the process for multiple drives, there is no physical indicator for you to know which disk has been degaussed, leaving room for error.

Destruction

Complete disk destruction by drilling holes, crushing disk plates by hydraulic presses and pulverization in industrial shredders are all effective ways of safeguarding your data and can be more cost effective than high volume disk overwrites and is considered to be more effective than degaussing.  The downside in employing this data security method is the same as in degaussing, – you will need to purchase new drives if you wish to re-use your machines.  If you are remarketing your old IT, depending on the type of equipment, you will experience up to a 50% reduction in resale value if your equipment is without hard drives.

In our next post on data security, we will be discussing how important a chain of custody is in your IT disposal process.

If you are interested in discussing a disk wipe solution we would be happy to speak with you. Please contact us on the number above or through our contact us page.

Subscribe to our newsletter

There are several ways to get rid of your old IT hardware but not all may be in accordance with corporate policy or the many types of government and environmental regulations.  Giving away old equipment to employees, donating the machines to a charity, or taking them to the local recycler down the road are popular methods of IT disposal but each carry their own risks.

Despite the existence of IT disposal service providers, there is still an abundance of machines improperly disposed of, worse still ending up in landfill.  Through speaking with many customers every day, we still find that this is the case.  Other than the fact that harmful chemicals and toxic substances within ICT equipment is damaging to the environment, if any equipment is found in landfill with your organisation’s name on it then it could certainly expose you to bad press and potentially large fines.

In a previous post we raised the issues concerned with giving or selling your old IT equipment to staff.  Donating old equipment to charity is a noble and manageable option but care must be taken to ensure all corporate data is removed from machines so it is essential that an appropriate level of disk sanitization is adopted to minimise the risk of exposure.   Furthermore, to protect your company brand, it is advised that some level of testing should be performed on the machines prior to donating them, to ensure your organisation is not just seen to be giving away scrap and instead donating something which is actually useful.

Considering the above, the demands and resulting cost of often scarce internal resources to administer, manage and perform the above tasks generally outweigh the benefits.  By choosing the right partner to manage the computer disposal process for you, all your excess IT equipment will be managed efficiently and will not cause your business the opportunity cost in having to manage it yourself.   In many cases you can still instruct your IT disposal partner to quarantine some of your devices to be sold to staff, or donated to your favourite charity, or better still, donate the funds you get back from the sold equipment and allow the charity to invest those funds where they need them most.

If you are looking for an IT Disposal solution for your organisation, please visit our IT Disposal page for more information.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive a monthly download of our articles.

Why do disk wipe methods specify multiple passes, i.e. 3, 5, 7 and even up to 35 wipes? Surely the first pass does the job?

Having helped many clients in Australia and all over the world safely and securely dispose of their IT equipment, the subject of information security or disk wipe methods was always something that came up.  Each company I worked with had a different view on data security and in particular disk wipe standards, some ranged from little or no interest about the disk wipe, where others demanded wipes which would take half a day on each machine and required an armored van escort between their offices and the technology renewal centre. Some say that is just overkill, I say it is a matter of perspective.  If you are spending millions to protect information on your network, you may as well take the same amount of care once your IT equipment is no longer connected to it.

Most people these days know that just hitting the delete button does not fully remove information stored on your hard drive. (There are many tools available online, some for less than $20 which you can download to find those files you accidentally deleted).

Deleting files just deletes the pointers to where that data resides on your drive, and does not actually remove the data.

To safeguard your data you need to employ tools to properly sanitize your drives prior to disposal to reduce costly business risks, liabilities, regulatory requirements and embarrassment that can occur if data fell into wrong hands.  There are many methods and standards for information security, from a simple low level format, multiple pass disk overwrites, even right through to complete disk destruction.

But which method is right for you?

Basically, it comes down to Cost Vs Risk.

Who you are and what you do will depend on the amount of risk you could be exposed to.

If you are a personal home user who wants to be protected from identity theft then a one-pass disk wipe overwrite using industry standard software should do the trick.  There are many disk wipe tools available on the web and in retail stores and are pretty easy to use.

If the data you are trying to safeguard comes from an organisation, then your company is responsible for the data which resides on its machines and due to privacy laws, your organisation could be exposed to litigation and fines if you have a data breach.  If your company keeps confidential client information (such as medical records, bank details etc), Intellectual Property or other proprietary information, and are a potential target of people who may want to steal or misuse such data, then it is important to consider higher levels of disk wiping techniques involving multiple disk overwrites or even destruction of disks, however a three pass disk overwrite is generally considered to be the industry standard and is recommended by many government agencies around the world.

The level of security you therefore choose will need to match your organisation’s appetite for risk and budget.

The higher the level of security, the more it is likely to cost. This is due to a number of factors (special packaging, security escort etc) including the time it takes to complete a disk wipe. A one-pass disk wipe, depending on the tool you employ, could take anywhere between 20 minutes to a few hours to complete just one machine, a three pass disk wipe could take twice as long, and 5 or 7 pass could take an entire day.

There comes a point where after a certain number of wipes, you may as well just destroy the hard drive as the time taken to wipe the machines would cost more than a new hard disk.

There is more to Information Security than just the disk wipe.

This is the first in a series of disk wipe articles we will be posting on this blog. In the next article we will talk about what are the various methods of sanitizing data and explain each method in detail, covering disk wipe technology as well as physical processes and the pros and cons of using each.

If you are interested in discussing a disk wipe solution we would be happy to speak with you. Please contact us on the number above or through our contact us page.

Make sure your IT Disposal strategy includes a focus on remarketing, ensuring the computer equipment which still has value is sold and that value is returned to you.

IT Disposal  is commonly not the highest of priorities for organisations, indeed it is sometimes regarded as lost time and money due to the perceived burden on the internal resources handling the processing of old equipment, and the fact they are dealing with equipment perceived as having no value because it has surpassed end of life.  As such the task of disposing of old IT can be put off until the cupboards, internal storage, basements, and off-site storage are full to bursting point with dust laden machines.

What many organisations still do not realise is that there can be value to be had from your old IT equipment. Those that embrace IT Asset Management, particularly a proper computer disposal process, have the chance to reap a greater Return on Investment (ROI) from their old hardware, as well as contribute towards corporate environmental sustainability programs in organisation.  In order to get the maximum benefit from your old IT, asset management needs to be adopted as a discipline, with the IT department learning to master the art of retiring hardware at the right time.

End of use equipment often has value (depending on its age) so ensure you work with a reputable IT Disposal provider who can help you assess the potential market value of your IT assets and help you achieve the maximum recovery on your investment.  Even those broken machines or ones that are well past their use by date can herald a small return on the initial investment as the internal components may be harvested and sold to capture value.  Some equipment may be worth nothing at all even after dismantling but you still need to get it out the door in order to regain that valuable storage space, and ensure the equipment is not going to land-fill.  CRT monitors no longer have any market value but they do contain large amounts of lead in the tubes, and hence are very harmful to the environment if disposed of improperly, so ensure that you do not donate or give them away as it is likely they will very quickly end up on someone’s front verge and end up in land fill.

The key to getting the best return and ensuring the stockpile of your old IT is kept to a minimum, is not to delay your remarketing.  An IT Disposal process that focuses on first recovering the best possible value from your computer equipment will maximise the return you get.  The time factor in an IT Disposal process is important as equipment values for used equipment only move in one direction; down.  Each month your equipment could depreciate in market value by between 5 and 7%, so do not delay your efforts to clear out your old equipment to ensure you can recover maximum value for your assets.

If you would like to discuss an IT Disposal strategy with us, we would love to hear from you! Visit our IT Disposal page for more information or contact us directly on the phone number above.

Although it may seem like a good way to dispose of your old or excess IT assets, selling or giving away your IT equipment to staff could expose your organization’s  proprietary data, and cost you more than you think.

To avoid any Data security risk, before you sell the equipment to staff you should ensure the disks are properly sanitized prior to handing the items over.  Ensure you communicate clearly to staff that if they choose to buy their old machine, they will no longer have all of their personal files and photos on it.  From our experience this is at times the expectation that staff have and one of the reasons they specifically want the old machine they were using.

Once machines have been wiped, unless the operating system is re-installed, your staff will likely need to purchase a new license for that machine.

Performing a disk wipe on these machines internally and if you choose to re-install an operating system can cost your internal IT staff a lot of time.   Time which could be spent on more strategic IT initiatives.

The other consequence of selling your old IT to staff is the increase in support calls made to your IT department.  After all, since old equipment is generally out of warranty, where is the first place employees will go if they have a problem with this machine? – Back to where they bought it.

Our recommendation is that if you do wish to implement a staff purchase program as part of your IT Disposal strategy, work with a reputable IT Disposal vendor who can manage the disk wipe process for you, can test and audit the machines for functionality and then sell the equipment to your staff, removing your organisation from the responsibility and time involved in the IT Disposal process.  The remaining equipment that staff do not want will then be disposed properly, ensuring you are not left with excess equipment taking up valuable space.

If you are looking for an Computer Disposal solution for your organisation, please visit our IT Disposal page for more information.