Purpose
To define ongoing retirement and replacement practices and intervals for computing machinery, for the sake of both budgetary planning and failure reduction. Portions of the purpose are due to machines inevitably failing. However technology is not a static field, and massive increases in efficiency tend to occur regularly, thus driving the need to adopt new technology to keep pace and stay competitive. In addition, wringing every last cycle from a machine tends to manifest itself in failures in the field that tend to be far more costly in time and effort than the extra cycles not captured by a controlled replacement program that does so proactively.
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Scope
This policy shall encompass all scanners, printers, network switches, routers, desktop PCs, notebook PCs, projectors, monitors, and other computer equipment.
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Policy
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Data tracking
Internal operations shall have the responsibility for tracking all hardware purchases as to their purchase date, and warranty expiration date. Further, Internal operations shall likewise record hardware faults, loss, theft, damage, and replacement of all hardware in their records for review and updating of this and other policies. As a corollary to this policy, all technology-related purchases shall be made through Internal Operations and shall be recorded by Internal Ops prior to being placed into service.
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Reports
Internal operations shall submit to management a report of the machines being EOLed and needing to be replaced every calendar year to assist in the budget process.
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EOLed Equipment
Equipment that has been end-of-lifed shall be pulled from active service. If the end-of-life hardware is in good repair and there are other substantially similar hardware still in active service then the hardware shall be retained by Internal Ops to be made available when active hardware shall fail/need repair. In the event that there is no substantially similar hardware or the hardware is in disrepair the hardware shall be donated or recycled after compliance with the media destruction sub-section of the security policy has been complied with.
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Equipment lifecycles
Type Estimated practical life Comments
Notebook computers 3-4 years Replacement within this range is subjective, and will be based on need for more efficient equipment and the failure rate of equipment type.
Desktop computers 4-5 years Excepting training room computers
Training room computers 5 years These are low impact machines. The only possible consideration here is that training requirements may eclipse these machines prior to them being truly EOLed.
Projectors >5 years Minimum service life should be 5 years, with warranty renewal, maintenance and consumables factoring into replacement decision.
Printers - low impact 2 years Due to the insignificant cost, we should plan on replacing 1/2 of these printers every year.
Printers - heavy use networked >4 years Lifetime of 4 years expected. May continue in service for longer periods of time depending on cost of service/warranty extensions.
Switches 7 years Switches tend to be low failure rate items, and this is more for speed increases than anything. Particularly with 10Ge becoming more affordable
Backup devices 3 years
Monitors 4 years Monitors actually replaced on failure; for budgetary purposes plan on replacing 25% each year.