eLoop is an IT lifecycle management company based in Export, Pennsylvania. The ITAD company specializes in data destruction, e-waste recycling, and remarketing solutions. As a BAN e-Stewards recycler and a member of the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), eLoop needs to maintain the highest standards for secure and compliant IT asset disposition through the devices' chain of custody. The company provides data erasure and physical destruction services to sanitize data-bearing devices such as hard drives, SSDs & mobile devices.
Business Need
eLoop had the following needs while assessing different data erasure solutions:
- Need for scalable data erasure solution: The company needed a scalable data wiping solution with a readily adjustable capacity to fulfill large media sanitization contracts comprising thousands of hard drives. Additionally, it was looking for a versatile solution with native support to erase assorted storage drives and devices (like PC and Mac) together in a cohesive workflow. Moreover, eLoop wanted to go agile with its data erasure capacity, delivering projects efficiently regardless of their size and complexity.
- ERP-integrated data erasure: ERP integration using Makor was another critical business need of eLoop. The company was looking to integrate the data erasure tool with the ERP system (Makor). It wanted to set up a unified data erasure facility with capabilities like real-time asset tagging and capturing storage hardware details in the ERP before processing the device for erasure. With ERP integration, eLoop expected to achieve an automated data erasure process line with real-time data synchronization, single-source information, seamless inventory management, and overall increased process efficiency.
Challenges
eLoop encountered the following challenges with its existing setup:
- Limited functionality of the existing data erasure tool: The company was using a popular data erasure tool, however, the system available in software and hardware variants allowed parallel erasure of only few hard drives. The limited capacity hampered eLoop's operational efficiency, critical to fulfilling large service contracts. Additionally, the existing system was designed to erase specifically the "loose" hard drives, posing limitations to wiping the built-in hard drives in laptops, desktops, and Mac unless removed. This limitation made the wiping of devices laborious, inefficient, and technically strenuous, particularly when removing the hard drive from a Mac system.
- Current process & solution lacked ERP integration: With the existing system, the company handled individual process components through standalone systems leading to process inefficiencies and documentation inaccuracies, with considerable manual efforts to upkeep the hardware records. Further, there was no real-time data input and retrieval mechanism to support an intelligent and just-in-time workflow for data erasure and inventory management processes. Also, their data erasure tool did not support ERP integration, a prime need of eLoop to automate recordkeeping and inventory management for the storage assets lined up for wiping.
Solution: The eLoop team reached out to Stellar for assessing BitRaser Drive Eraser, a scalable & certified data wiping software for hard drives, PCs, and servers; well integrated with Makor ERP. Stellar BitRaser Team demonstrated the wiping features inline with eLoop's requirement to scale up its data erasure operations and process efficiency through automated and unified workflows.
Approach
The BitRaser team at Stellar gathered a detailed understanding of eLoop's overarching business needs and challenges with the existing arrangement. It began the project by understanding the company's system architecture and network environment.
An in-depth understanding of the technical configuration was crucial for the seamless deployment of BitRaser Drive Eraser Admin Console on the company's internal network. The goal was to support simultaneous booting and wiping of all drive and device variants connected through the local network via a central "command and control" system— the Admin Console. The team jointly achieved this purpose by configuring the company's onsite Server machine, followed by installation of BitRaser on the remote system. The ERP integration was tested to support interoperability between the standalone process components and unify their workflows.
BitRaser Benefits
eLoop benefited greatly with BitRaser & could scale their media sanitization operations by readily expanding the parallel data wiping capacity to thousands of drives and devices. The service facility was now equipped for fast and agile service delivery due to easy erasure configurability, readymade setup, and process control via an ERP system. BitRaser team's easy accessibility & support helped eLoop to migrate easily from their old data erasure seamlessly.