Net Zeros and Ones

CHAPTER 10Data Center Operations

• 10.1 Return Material Allowances
• 10.2 NAS
• 10.3 Logical Drives
• 10.4 Rack-Mounted Hard Drives
• 10.5 Summary

Data centers pose unique challenges for a data sanitization program. They typically hold many petabytes of data spread across thousands of servers and data storage systems. They often host systems for many different customers whose data has to be strictly segregated.

Data center operators have many tasks. They have to ensure that power and cooling and network connectivity are always available. They have to provide for physical security, which in a multitenant data center can involve locked cabinets, cages, or even segregated rooms. Visitors are checked in and out through man traps. In some instances, they are weighed on scales both on the way in and the way out to prevent theft of equipment.

Often data center operators are responsible for the physical maintenance of servers and storage arrays. This is where they can provide data erasure services, both for their customers' requirements and for maintenance and cost savings.

10.1 Return Material Allowances

Most data centers have strict data security policies, one of which is that a customer's data may not be removed from the data center without authorization. This poses a problem for the data center operators because they own and manage thousands of storage devices, usually in the form of removable hard drives that can be swapped out if they are being upgraded or are in need of replacement ...