Business Services Computing Equipment Replacement Cycle

In 2003, Business Services moved from a 3-year to a 4-year equipment replacement lifecycle to help address concerns over wasted computing resources and to offer the ability to spread the cost and budgeting over a longer period of time.

The decision for a 4-year lifecycle was based on research, industry best practices, and experience.

The reasons that Business Services practices a 4-year lifecycle are:

• Reduce the total cost of ownership.
   
• Eliminate the more frequent failures of older computer equipment.
   
• Provide fewer computer models to support.  This reduces cost in maintaining a standard image and allows changing of computer parts with spare computers to reduce user downtime.
     
• Use the collective buying power of a large purchase.
   
• Eliminate the need for a trickle-down of equipment across Business Services and eliminate the associated cost.  There are a limited number of support staff to manage the process.
   
• Provide enough computing power to run operating systems and software used by Business Services staff.
   
• Provide known dates in advance to allow for budget planning for equipment replacement.
   
• Follow industry best practices which continue to recommend a 4-year lifecycle depending on processing needs.

In 2003 the Business Services computing Steering Committee agreed to a replacement cycle of all Business Services Computing supported computers when they are 4-years old.  This is due to the costs and resource advantages listed above for maintaining computers on a 4-year lifecycle.  Therefore, computers will not be kept for a period of longer than 4 years.