GREEN COMPUTING

(MY VISION TO GREEN COMPUTING

Make every day a green day

• Going green starts from the very beginning. Even when you are buying the next PC that promises to be the fastest or the prettiest, look for the ENERGY STAR rating to identify energy efficient equipment. ENERGY STAR computers power down to a sleep mode that consume 15 Watts or less power, which is around 70% less electricity than a computer without power management features. Desktops, laptops and monitors that meet 23 required environmental performance criteria may be registered in EPEAT by their manufacturers in 40 countries worldwide

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DEFINATION OF GREEN COMPUTING

• Green computing is the environmentally responsible use of computers and related resources. Such practices include the implementation of energy-efficient central processing units (cpu's), servers and peripheral s as well as reduced resource consumption and proper disposal of electronic waste (e-waste).

The Goals Of Green Computing

(TECHNICAL AREA OF GREEN COMPUTING)

• Scalable computing involves using computer systems with an objective to adapt to new computing hardware, software and methodologies, while keeping the performance. Scalability is one of the most important desirable quality for a computing system including hardware, software, network, process, website, or business model. 

• Green Computing or Green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT systems and activities. The main duty of Green Computing is to design, manufacture, use, and dispose of computing systems and accessories in environment respective way. In the context of TCSC, the technical area of Green Computing aims to carry on the research to design, develop and implement environment-respect algorithms, hardware/software and computing systems. 

• The web site is the official web interface of Technical Area of Green Computing, IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing (TCSC). Technical area of Green Computing is launched on Jan. 2010, which is currently coordinated by Dr. Lizhe Wang. The primary aim of the Technical Areas of Green Computing is to create a Technical Resource Center, which provides introductory information and various challenges in the area of Green Computing, links to major R&D projects around the world of Green Computing. This helps (both TCSC and the Technical Area of Green Computing)  gain global visibility and  provides opportunity for global researchers to connect themselves to regional activities and vice versa. In addition, it provides opportunity for young researchers and industries interested in that topic to discuss with technical area coordinators, which in turn results in collaborations.

• Green computing or green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT. In the article Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as "the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems—such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communications systems—efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment." The goals of green computing are similar to green chemistry; reduce the use of hazardous materials, maximize energy efficiency during the product's lifetime, and promote the recyclability or biodegradability of defunct products and factory waste. Research continues into key areas such as making the use of computers as energy-efficient as possible, and designing algorithms and systems for efficiency-related computer technologies.

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

Green Technology Strategies is an emerging discipline. This subject is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors in Australia and internationally. Implementation methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested are introduced. At the completion of this subject the student can:

• Estimate the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of an organisation,
• Assess ways to reduce the carbon footprint of an organisation, by changes to polices for procurement of ICT, changes to the ICT operations and revising business processes.

THE REGULATIONS AND INDUSTRY INTIATIVES TOWARDS GREEN COMPUTING

(Regulations and industry initiatives)

• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a survey of over 90 government and industry initiatives on "Green ICTs", i.e. information and communication technologies, the environment and climate change. The report concludes that initiatives tend to concentrate on the greening ICTs themselves rather than on their actual implementation to tackle global warming and environmental degradation. In general, only 20% of initiatives have measurable targets, with government programs tending to include targets more frequently than business associations.

(Goverment )

• Many governmental agencies have continued to implement standards and regulations that encourage green computing. The Energy Star program was revised in October 2006 to include stricter efficiency requirements for computer equipment, along with a tiered ranking system for approved products.

• Some efforts place responsibility on the manufacturer to dispose of the equipment themselves after it is no longer needed; this is called the extended producer responsibility model. The European Union's directives 2002/95/EC (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive), on the reduction of hazardous substances, and 2002/96/EC (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive) on waste electrical and electronic equipment required the substitution of heavy metals and flame retardants like Polybrominated biphenyl and Polybrominated diphenyl ethers in all electronic equipment put on the market starting on July 1, 2006. The directives placed responsibility on manufacturers for the gathering and recycling of old equipment.

• There are currently 26 US states that have established state-wide recycling programs for obsolete computers and consumer electronics equipment. The statutes either impose an "advance recovery fee" for each unit sold at retail, or require the manufacturers to reclaim the equipment at disposal.

In 2010 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into legislation by President Obama. The bill allocated over $90 billion to be invested in green initiatives (renewable energy, smart grids, energy efficiency, etc.) In January 2010, the U.S. Energy Department granted $47 million of the ARRA money towards projects that aim to improve the energy efficiency of data centers. The projects will provide research on the following three areas: optimize data center hardware and software, improve power supply chain, and data center cooling technologies.

(industry)

• Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) is an effort to reduce the electric power consumption of PCs in active and inactive states.The CSCI provides a catalog of green products from its member organizations, and information for reducing PC power consumption. It was started on 2007-06-12. The name stems from the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers program, which was launched in 1999. The WWF is also a member of the Computing Initiative.

•  The Green Electronics Council offers the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) to assist in the purchase of "greener" computing systems. The Council evaluates computing equipment on 51 criteria - 23 required and 28 optional - that measure a product's efficiency and sustainability attributes. Products are rated Gold, Silver or Bronze depending on how many optional criteria they meet. On 2007-01-24, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13423, which requires all United States Federal agencies to use EPEAT when purchasing computer systems.

•  The Green Grid is a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. It was founded in February 2007 by several key companies in the industry – AMD, APC, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Rackable Systems, SprayCool, Sun Microsystems and VMware. The Green Grid has since grown to hundreds of members, including end users and government organizations, all focused on improving data center efficiency.
•  The Green500 list rates supercomputers by energy efficiency (megaflops/watt, encouraging a focus on efficiency rather than absolute performance. Green Comm Challenge is an organization that promotes the development of energy conservation technology and practices in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The Transaction Processing Performance Council(TPC) Energy specification augments the existing TPC benchmarks by allowing for optional publications of energy metrics alongside their performance results.
• The SPEC Power is the first industry standard benchmark that measures power consumption in relation to performance for server-class computers.

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                                  THE VARIOUS APPROACHES TO GREEN COMPUTING 

•           A: PRODUCT LONGEVITY
•          B: SOFTWARE AND DEPLOYMENT OPTIMIZATION-
•         ALGORITHMIC EFFICENCY,RESOURCE ALLOCATION,VIRTUALIZATION 
•         C: POWER MANAGEMENT-OPERATING SYSYTEM SUPPORT,POWER 
•         D: MATERIALS RECYCLING

PROCESSES AND MANAGEMENT

•   Recycling computing equipment can keep harmful materials such as lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium out of landfills, and can also replace equipment that otherwise would need to be manufactured, saving further energy and emissions. Computer systems that have outlived their particular function can be re-purposed, or donated to various charities and non-profit organizations.However, many charities have recently imposed minimum system requirements for donated equipment. Additionally, parts from outdated systems may be salvaged and recycled through certain retail outlet sand  municipal or private recycling centers. Computing supplies, such as printer cartridges, paper, and batteries may be recycled as well.
• A drawback to many of these schemes is that computers gathered through recycling drives are often shipped to developing countries where environmental standards are less strict than in North America and Europe. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition estimates that 80% of the post-consumer e-waste collected for recycling is shipped abroad to countries such as China and Pakistan.

• Unfortunately, in 2011, the collection rate of e-waste is still very low, even in the most ecologically advanced countries like France. In this country, e-waste collection is still at a 14 % annual rate between electronic equipments sold and e-waste collected for 2006 to 2009.
• The recycling of old computers raises an important privacy issue. The old storage devices still hold private information, such as emails, passwords and credit card numbers, which can be recovered simply by someone using software that is available freely on the Internet. Deletion of a file does not actually remove the file from the hard drive. Before recycling a computer, users should remove the hard drive, or hard drives if there is more than one, and physically destroy it or store it somewhere safe. There are some authorized hardware recycling companies to whom the computer may be given for recycling, and they typically sign a non-disclosure agreement

Service desk / service request management

Tasks include handling incidents and requests, and providing an interface for other ITSM processes. Features include:

1.   single point of contact (SPOC) and not necessarily the first point of contact (FPOC)
2.   single point of entry
3.   single point of entry
4.    streamlined communication channel
5. 5    Primary functions of a service desk include:
6.   6  incident control: life-cycle management of all service requests
7.   communication: keeping a customer informed of progress and advising on workarounds
8.  8The service desk function can have various names, such as:
9.     Call center: main emphasis on professionally handling large call volumes of telephone-based transactions
10.      Help desk: manage, co-ordinate and resolve incidents as quickly as possible at primary support level
11.      Service desk: not only handles incidents, problems and questions but also provides an interface for other activities such as change requests, maintenance contracts, software licenses, service-level management, configuration management, availability management, financial management and IT services continuity management
12. 2   The three types of structure for consideration:
13.    Local service desk: to meet local business needs – practical only until multiple locations requiring support services are involved
14.     Central service desk: for organisations having multiple locations – reduces operational costs and improves usage of available resources
15.     Virtual service desk: for organisations having multi-country locations – can be situated and accessed from anywhere in the world due to advances in network performance and telecommunications, reducing operational costs and improving usage of available resources

Incident management)

Incident management aims to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimise the adverse effect on business operations, thus ensuring that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. 'Normal service operation' is defined here as service operation within service-level agreement  limits.

Incident management can be defined as :

An 'Incident' is any event which is not part of the standard operation of the service and which causes, or may cause, an interruption or a reduction of the quality of the service.

The objective of incident management is to restore normal operations as quickly as possible with the least possible impact on either the business or the user, at a cost-effective price.

Problem management

Problem management aims to resolve the root causes of incidents and thus to minimise the adverse impact of incidents and problems on business that are caused by errors within the IT infrastructure, and to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors. A 'problem' is an unknown underlying cause of one or more incidents, and a 'known error' is a problem that is successfully diagnosed and for which either a work-around or a permanent resolution has been identified. The CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency) defines problems and known errors as follows

A problem is a condition often identified as a result of multiple incidents that exhibit common symptoms. Problems can also be identified from a single significant incident, indicative of a single error, for which the cause is unknown, but for which the impact is significant.

A known error is a condition identified by successful diagnosis of the root cause of a problem, and the subsequent development of a work-around.

Problem management differs from incident management. The principal purpose of problem management is to find and resolve the root cause of a problem and thus prevent further incidents; the purpose of incident management is to return the service to normal level as soon as possible, with smallest possible business impact.

The problem-management process is intended to reduce the number and severity of incidents and problems on the business, and report it in documentation to be available for the first-line and second line of the help desk. The proactive process identifies and resolves problems before incidents occur. Such processes include:

§  Trend analysis;

§  Targeting support action;

§  Providing information to the organisation

The error control process iteratively diagnoses known errors until they are eliminated by the successful implementation of a change under the control of the Change Management process.

The problem control process aims to handle problems in an efficient way. Problem control identifies the root cause of incidents and reports it to the service desk. Other activities are:

§  Problem identification and recording                                                                                              

§  Problem investigation and diagnosis

A technique for identifying the root cause of a problem is to use an Ishikawa diagram, also referred to as a cause-and-effect diagram, tree diagram, or fishbone diagram. Alternatively, a formal Root Cause Analysis method such as Apollo Root Cause Analysis can be implemented and used to identify causes and solutions. An effective root cause analysis method and/or tool will provide the most effective/efficient solutions to address problems in the Problem Management process.

Change management

Change Management aims to ensure that standardised methods and procedures are used for efficient handling of all changes,

Main article: Change management (ITSM)

A change is "an event that results in a new status of one or more configuration items (CIs) approved by management, cost effective, enhances business process changes (fixes) – with a minimum risk to IT infrastructure.

The main aims of change management include:

§  Minimal disruption of services

§  Reduction in back-out activities

§  Economic use of resources involved in the change

Change management terminology

§  Change: the addition, modification or removal of CIs

§  Request for change (RFC) or in older terminology change request (CR): form used to record details of a request for a change and is sent as an input to change management by the change requestor

§  Forward schedule of changes (FSC): schedule that contains details of all forthcoming Changes.

Release management is used by the software migration team for platform-independent and automated distribution of software and hardware, including license controls across the entire IT infrastructure. Proper software and hardware control ensures the availability of licensed, tested, and version-certified software and hardware, which functions as intended when introduced into  

existing infrastructure. Quality control during the development and implementation of new hardware and software is also the responsibility of Release Management. This guarantees that all software meets the demands of the business processes.

The goals of release management include:

§  Planning the rollout of software

§  Designing and implementing procedures for the distribution and installation of changes to IT systems

§  Effectively communicating and managing expectations of the customer during the planning and rollout of new releases

§  Controlling the distribution and installation of changes to IT systems

Release management focuses on the protection of the live environment and its services through the use of formal procedures and checks.

A Release consists of the new or changed software and/or hardware required to implement approved changes.

Release categories include:

§  Major software releases and major hardware upgrades, normally containing large amounts of new functionality, some of which may make intervening fixes to problems redundant. A major upgrade or release usually supersedes all preceding minor upgrades, releases and emergency fixes.

§  Minor software releases and hardware upgrades, normally containing small enhancements and fixes, some of which may have already been issued as emergency fixes. A minor upgrade or release usually supersedes all preceding emergency fixes.

§  Emergency software and hardware fixes, normally containing the corrections to a small number of known problems.

Releases can be divided based on the release unit into:

§  Delta release: a release of only that part of the software which has been changed. For example, security patches.

§  Full release: the entire software program is deployed—for example, a new version of an existing application.

§  Packaged release: a combination of many changes—for example, an operating system image which also contains specific applications. 

Configuration management 

Configuration management is the management and traceability of every aspect of a configuration from beginning to end and it includes the following key process areas under its umbrella : Identification, Planning Change Control, Change Management, Release Management, Maintenance,

process that tracks all individual Configuration Items (CI) generated by applying all of the key process areas in a system. 

Service Delivery

The Service Delivery discipline concentrates on the proactive services the ICT must deliver to provide adequate support to business users. It focuses on the business as the customer of the ICT services (compare with: Service Support). The discipline consists of the following processes, explained in subsections below:

§  Service level management

§  Capacity management

§  IT service continuity management

§  Availability management

§  Financial management

Service-level management

Service-level management provides for continual identification, monitoring and review of the levels of IT services specified in the Service-level agreements (SLAs). Service-level management ensures that arrangements are in place with internal IT support-providers and external suppliers in the form of operational-level agreements (OLAs) and underpinning contracts (UCs), respectively. The process involves assessing the impact of change upon service quality and SLAs. The service level management process is in close relation with the operational processes to control their activities. The central role of Service-level management makes it the natural place for metrics to be established and monitored against a benchmark.

Service level management is the primary interface with the customer (as opposed to the user serviced by the service desk). Service-level management is responsible for:

§  ensuring that the agreed IT services are delivered when and where they are supposed to be

§  liaising with availability management, capacity management, incident management and problem management to ensure that the required levels and quality of service are achieved within the resources agreed with financial management  

          §  producing and maintaining a service catalog (a list of standard IT service options and agreements made available to customers)

§  ensuring that appropriate IT service continuity plans exist to support the business and its continuity requirements.

The service-level manager relies on the other areas of the service delivery process to provide the necessary support which ensures the agreed services are provided in a cost-effective, secure and efficient manner.

Capacity management

Capacity management supports the optimum and cost-effective provision of IT services by helping organisations match their IT resources to business demands. The high-level activities include:

§  application sizing

§  workload management

§  demand management

§  modelling

§  capacity planning

§  resource management

§  performance management

IT service continuity management

IT service continuity management covers the processes by which plans are put in place and managed to ensure that IT Services can recover and continue even after a serious incident occurs. It is not just about reactive measures, but also about proactive measures – reducing the risk of a disaster in the first instance.

Continuity management is regarded by the application owners as the recovery of the IT infrastructure used to deliver IT Services, but as of 2009 many businesses practice the much further-reaching process of business continuity planning (BCP), to ensure that the whole end-to-end business process can continue should a serious incident occur (at primary support level).

Continuity management involves the following basic steps:

§  prioritising the activities to be recovered by conducting a business impact analysis (BIA)

§  performing a risk assessment (aka risk analysis) for each of the IT services to identify the assets, threats, vulnerabilities and countermeasures for each service.

§  evaluating the options for recovery

§  producing the contingency plan

§  testing, reviewing, and revising the plan on a regular basis

Availability management

Availability management targets allowing organisations to sustain the IT service-availability to support the business at a justifiable cost. The high-level activities are realise availability requirements, compile availability plan, monitor availability, and monitor maintenance obligations.

Availability management addresses the ability of an IT component to perform at an agreed level over a period of time.

§  Reliability: Ability of an IT component to perform at an agreed level at described conditions.

§  Maintainability: The ability of an IT component to remain in, or be restored to an operational state.

§  Serviceability: The ability for an external supplier to maintain the availability of component or function under a third-party contract.

§  Resilience: A measure of freedom from operational failure and a method of keeping services reliable. One popular method of resilience is redundancy.

§  Security: A service may have associated data. Security refers to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of that data. Availability gives a clear overview of the end-to-end availability of the system.

Financial management for IT services

Main article: Financial management for IT services (ITSM)

IT Financial Management comprises the discipline of ensuring that the IT infrastructure is obtained at the most effective price (which does not necessarily mean cheapest) and calculating the cost of providing IT services so that an organisation can understand the costs of its IT services. These costs may then be recovered from the customer of the service. This is the 2nd component of service delivery process.

ICT infrastructure management

ICT infrastructure management ("ICT" is an acronym for "information and communication technology") processes recommend best practice for requirements analysis, planning, design, deployment and ongoing operations management and technical support of an ICT infrastructure.

The infrastructure management processes describe those processes within ITIL that directly relate to the ICT equipment and software that is involved in providing ICT services to customers.

§  ICT deployment

§  ICT operations

§  ICT technical support

These disciplines are less well understood than those of service management and therefore often some of their content is believed to be covered 'by implication' in service management disciplines.

ICT design and planning

ICT design and planning provides a framework and approach for the strategic and technical design and planning of ICT infrastructures. It includes the necessary combination of business (and overall IS) strategy, with technical design and architecture. ICT design and planning drives both the procurement of new ICT solutions through the production of statements of requirement ("SOR") and invitations totender ("ITT") and is responsible for the initiation and management of ICT Programmes for strategic business change. Key outputs from design and planning are:

§  ICT strategies, policies and plans

§  the ICT overall architecture & management architecture

§  feasibility studies, ITTs and SORs

§  business cases

ICT deployment management

                                

ICT deployment provides a framework for the successful management of design, build, test and roll-out (deploy) projects within an overall ICT programme. It includes many project managementdisciplines in common with PRINCE2, but has a broader focus to include the necessary integration of release management and both functional and non functional testing.

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  *THE IMPROVED ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND THE USE OF MATERIAL IN A SELECTED

ORGANIZATION

    Although energy efficiency is now a primary concern in the United States, it has long been a concern in other countries less blessed with the same abundance of natural resources. However, the US has been readjusting its thinking about energy use as well as the pollution of the environment for decades now.

Although it goes beyond just the issue of green computing, an early program still going strong is Energy Star. This program was begun by the United States government in 1992. It was originally devised to make consumer devices like TVs and refrigerators more energy efficient. Subsequent to its implementation in the US, the program was adopted by Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the European Union.

The Energy Star program promotes energy efficient products through its certification and product labeling. For instance, it is credited with giving the world the sleep mode for computer consoles. This simple idea is now seen in the operation of the most advanced multi-core processors, which can hibernate some of their processing cores when their computing power is unneeded, thus saving energy.

Increased consumer awareness of green computing is now fostered by organizations like Environmental Protection Agency and the Greener Electronics Council through programs like EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool). EPEAT is a ranking system that helps consumers compare and select desktop computers, notebooks and displays based on their environmental attributes.

-http://green-compute.com/energy_efficiency/energy_efficiency.htm.

Built from eco-friendly materials and featuring lower power consumption and computer power management, or “CPM,” capabilities, the green computers have fewer and smaller component parts and generate less heat than regular computer models.

Ultimately, if adapted successfully, the use of these green computers will be responsible for lower amounts of C0₂ released into the air.

Despite how plausible this green idea seems to be, some say the realization of this product is still a long way from developing into a usable interface.

According to NextGen Research’s study titled, “Green Computing: Reducing the Environmental Impact of PCs, Servers By Using Safer Materials, Slashing Power Needs” the goal of producing a 100% wholly-green computers, from inception to production to end of a PC, laptop, monitor and server’s lifestyle is a ways away.

However, while the green computer may not be in full effect for some time, computer and server vendors are working on making their products increasingly more energy efficient and environmentally benign, as a way to take a stance in the green computing equipment segment which is set to grow from $47 billion in 2009 to $223.7 billion in 2013, according to the study.

Laura Didio, author of NextGen’s Green Computing study, said that the hardware vendors competing in the computing equipment sectors share the common philosophy: “green desktop and server hardware is good for the planet, and what’s good for the planet is good for business,” Didio said.

And, in efforts to keep with the “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” philosophy, vendor companies are pushing forwarded backed by various legislative initiatives that regulate everything from component materials, manufacturing guidelines, green building codes and carbon emissions to disposal and recycling efforts.

While the government and utility incentives give vendors something to hold on to, According to Didio, these companies will be busy for quite some time. 

 *THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AS A COMPUTER USER TO HELP IN PROTECT IN 
THE ENVIRONMENT BY:

  A: CONSERVING ENERGY

1. Clean or replace air filters on your air conditioning unit at least once a month.
2. If you have central air conditioning, do not close vents in unused rooms.
3. Lower the thermostat on your water heater to 120.
4. Wrap your water heater in an insulated blanket.
5. Turn down or shut off your water heater when you will be away for extended periods.
6. Turn off unneeded lights even when leaving a room for a short time.
7. Set your refrigerator temperature at 36 to 38 and your freezer at 0 to 5 .
8. When using an oven, minimize door opening while it is in use; it reduces oven temperature by 25 to 30 every time you open the door.
9. Clean the lint filter in your dryer after every load so that it uses less energy.
10. Unplug seldom used appliances.

  B: RECYCLING

Consumer recycling

Consumer recycling options include (see below) sale, donating computers directly to organizations in need, sending devices directly back to their original manufacturers, or getting components to a convenient recycler or refurbisher.

Corporate recycling

Businesses seeking a cost-effective way to recycle large amounts of computer equipment responsibly face a more complicated process.

Businesses also have the options of sale or contacting the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and arranging recycling options.

Some companies will pick up unwanted equipment from businesses, wipe the data clean from the systems, and provide an estimate of the product’s remaining value. For unwanted items that still have value, these firms will buy the excess IT hardware and sell refurbished products to those seeking more affordable options than buying new. Companies that specialize in data protection and green disposal processes dispose of both data and used equipment while at the same time employing strict procedures to help improve the environment. Professional IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) firms specialize in corporate computer disposal and recycling services in compliance with local laws and regulations and also offer secure data elimination services that comply with data erasure standards.

Corporations face risks both for incompletely destroyed data and for improperly disposed computers. In America companies are liable for compliance with regulations even if the recycling process is outsourced under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Companies can mitigate these risks by requiring waivers of liability, audit trails, certificates of data destruction, signed confidentiality agreements, and random audits of information security. The National Association of Information Destruction is an international trade association for data destruction providers.

Sale

Online auctions are an alternative for consumers willing to resell for cash less fees, in a complicated, self-managed, competitive environment where paid listings might not sell. Online classified ads can be similarly risky due to forgery scams and uncertainty.

Donation

A number of organizations, usually nonprofit organizations (NPOs), attempt to reuse computers.These NPOs usually refurbish usable computers for sale at discounted prices to the needy, to other nonprofit organizations, or to the general public.

Consumer recycling includes a variety of donation options, such as charitable NPo organizations - for example, Free Geek) which may offer tax benefits in return.

For both corporations and consumers, NPOs (such as Nonprofit Technology Resources or Camara) will often accept and refurbish still-usable computers in return for tax benefits. The Computer Takeback Campaign and the TechSoup Donate Hardware List are resources for locating such refurbishers. Donated systems can also be directed to developing nations (see Computer technology for developing areas).

However, in cases where the computer equipment comes from a wide variety of manufacturers, it may be more efficient to hire a third-party contractor (such as ) to handle the recycling arrangements.

Takeback

When researching computer companies before a computer purchase, consumers can find out if they offer recycling services. Most major computer manufacturers offer some form of recycling. At the user's request they may mail in their old computers, or arrange for pickup from the manufacturer.

Hewlett packard also offers free recycling, but only one of its "national" recycling programs is available nationally, rather than in one or two specific states. Hewlett-Packard also offers to pick up any computer product of any brand for a fee, and to offer a coupon against the purchase of future computers or components; it was the largest computer recycler in America in 2003, and it has recycled over 750 million pounds of electronic waste globally since 1995.It encourages the shared approach of collection points for consumers and recyclers to meet.           AIZUDDIN BIN JASMI
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