Teraware amplifies your data sanitisation strategy

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Iron Mountain has partnered with ITRenew to offer the Teraware solution: A comprehensive, efficient strategy that guarantees 100% data erasure.

30 August 20227 min
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Today’s hyperscale data centres are exposed to a number of vulnerabilities when it comes to the secure erasure of their critical data.

Modern erasure platforms can assist data centres by deleting end-of-lifecycle devices while following technical protocols that ensure your organisation remains in regulatory compliance with Environmental, Social and (Corporate) Governance (ESG) standards.

Should you require the complete erasure of all data bearing devices in your IT infrastructure – or even a component of it – can you really guarantee you’re not exposing critical data to threat actors? Can you be sure you’re not overlooking the hidden and remapped sectors lurking on every storage device in every system installed in your racks? Can you guarantee you’re operating in accordance with the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?

To guarantee the protection of your critical infrastructure, Iron Mountain is offering ITRenew’s Teraware solution – the world’s most secure data sanitation program.

The challenges hindering your data erasure efforts

Data centres have high standards for data security and environmental compliance. That said, in the event of large scale decom or data centre decommission, the standard solutions for data erasure can prove both lengthy and costly.

The average time needed to sanitise a data centre’s servers, racks and hard drives can take over two weeks – slowing the productivity and efficiency of your workforce while they wait for the data wipe to be completed.

What’s more, unforeseen hindrances in the process, or data remaining hidden upon hard drives you thought were completely sanitised – could expose your organisation to the risk of a data breach. Combined with the potential fines and penalties associated with violation of data privacy laws, trusting an inefficient data sanitisation strategy has serious consequences.

The Teraware solution

Iron Mountain’s Teraware platform was built in a data centre, and scales with data centre – meaning we understand the nuances and needs that are so essential to your business operations.

When you choose to enlist ITRenew and Iron Mountain professional services in order to implement a Teraware solution, we’ll work with you to audit every individual asset you’ve outlined for sanitisation, guaranteeing we only erase the assets you no longer require.

What’s more, our in-house IT asset disposal (ITAD) experts work with your team to provide complete compliance assurance every step of the way, as well as a full audit trail to provide end-to-end visibility of your critical assets, as well as the steps we take to remove them.

How Teraware works

Once the identification of every piece of data to be sanitised has been completed, Teraware is deployed on every server of your IT infrastructure simultaneously. By loading the agent onto every server, Teraware can run parallel operations to comprehensively survey the targeted environment before erasing the necessary information outlined as per your audit.

The protocol, once executed, discovers every drive, server and rack back to your approved erasure listings, to guarantee Teraware has targeted the correct assets. We then reconcile this against your inventory to identify any drive that’s not discoverable, so that it can be physically pulled, verified and destroyed if it can’t be erased.

Teraware’s agent-based architecture enables parallelisation of tasks and unlimited scalability. The “mother brain” sends agents to all data bearing devices that need to be wiped and then wiping takes place concurrently, maximising the efficiency and productivity of your solution.

Once deployed Teraware works fast to eliminate your targeted data:

  • The complete wiping of virtually unlimited data occurs within two days.
  • Teraware erasure times average at 1 TB every 2.5 hours.
  • Fully wipes 98% of targeted drives, with a guaranteed 100% to-target executed by the physical wiping of leftover data.

The Teraware advantage

Teraware provides a scalable sector-verified erasure and can deal with virtually any of today’s hyperscale data centres. Whether dealing with 100 racks or 100,000 drives, the platform deploys with speed and efficiency, accomplishing the comprehensive erasure of the targeted data. Teraware is built to scale and guarantees 100% erasure with automated data and reporting that exceeds compliance requirements.

Our reporting, e-footprint and certificate of sanitization (COS) for every hard drive provides comprehensive insight into the origin of every piece of data destroyed, traced back to the original hard drive and server. This will allow you to verify you’re not missing anything, and minimise the number of drives that need to be shredded on site.

In the event that any passwords are stored on motherboards, they will be eliminated prior to the completion and validation of your erasure reporting. Our e-tracking eliminates the human error potentially associated with manual wiping, and we’ll verify we’ve captured every piece of data identified with full traceability.

Our data sanitisation software is certified by ADISA and will not verify the completion of the erasure protocols until all sectors, including hidden ones, have been wiped. Any drives that cannot be 100% sanitised are identified and physically destroyed.

Our in-house IT asset disposition (ITAD) experts provide complete compliance assurance and a full audit trail for peace of mind. We understand the critical nature of data privacy and the need to fully guarantee it.

Iron Mountain assists in the safe erasure of your data centre assets

Iron Mountain endeavours to provide comprehensive asset management solutions that empower businesses while honouring their ESG aspirations. We offer e-waste, IT asset disposal and data erasure strategies that increase efficiency and provide end-to-end visibility on the processes that protect their critical data. Iron Mountain embraces our responsibility to contribute to the fight for a net-zero future for our planet and empowers your organisation to do the same.

To learn more about how Teraware can ensure regulatory compliance with the ESG standards – while guaranteeing the 100% sector-verified eradication of your critical data – contact us today.