Companies are continually looking to drive down the total cost
of ownership of their IT infrastructure, and it is therefore increasingly
common to find that significant elements of the equipment involved
in a rollout project are actually being refreshed. In one recent
example of a major deployment into a high street bank, 30% of the
assets deployed were re-used. SMR has geared-up to meet
this requirement, and as such, has a large equipment-receiving area
within our configuration facility. Equipment is moved across from
the warehouse, where it is booked onto our SLIMS® database
by serial number. It is then examined, and categorised according
to a series of pre-defined clipping points, agreed between us as
part of the Project Definition Workshop (PDW). These categories
may for example, include: disposal, parts harvesting, and refresh
for re-use within the project. Where equipment is to be refreshed,
we will remove any external labels, and will then physically clean
the exterior of the unit (an internal cleaning service is also available).
The full level of required cleaning will be defined as part of the
PDW. We will then normally use proprietary software to wipe the
hard disk, before physically upgrading the hardware (larger hard
disk, CD drive, more memory etc) and rebuilding prior to deployment
into the rollout.
Equipment going for disposal will also normally receive either
a certified hard-disk wipe, or the hard disk will be physically
drilled (cost efficient and very effective!).
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