The Scenario
A financial planning firm in Sandton with 150 employees needs to overhaul its hardware lifecycle. Their computers are aging, leading to support tickets. They need a 5-year replacement schedule, a lease vs. buy decision framework, and a decommissioning process for old machines that strictly complies with POPIA to ensure no client financial data is exposed.
The Brief
Develop a fleet management strategy including a hardware lifecycle replacement policy, a secure disk erasure and decommissioning workflow under POPIA, and a vendor RFP outline.
Deliverables
- A fleet replacement policy detailing the lifespan of laptops/servers, standard specs, and triggers for early replacement
- A secure decommissioning protocol for storage media (HDDs/SSDs) aligning with NIST SP 800-88 guidelines to prevent data leaks under POPIA
- A vendor RFP (Request for Proposal) template for choosing a certified local e-waste recycling vendor, including verification of destruction certificates
- A financial analysis comparing leasing vs. purchasing the replacement hardware fleet, outlining tax and cash flow considerations in ZAR
Submission Guidance
Pay close attention to data destruction standards. Under POPIA, a simple format of a disk is insufficient for media containing banking or identity details. The plan must mandate certified cryptographic erasure or physical shredding.
Submit Your Work
Your submission is graded against the rubric on the right. If you pass, you get a public Badge URL you can share on LinkedIn. There is no draft save, so work offline first and paste your finished response here.