**Parent Topic**: [[Software/README]] ## You Can't Protect What You Don't Know About Anoop Nagwani's first rule for a new storage job: "make sure you know where all your data is. Usually, it's everywhere" — managed storage systems, local server disks, external drives under desks, stacks of tapes that should be off-site. The load-bearing line: **"you can't protect data that you don't know about."** New data sources "crop up spontaneously," usually from developers shipping features. ## What the Inventory Contains A data asset inventory is "a list of all your databases, network shares, LUNs, virtual and physical tape pools, and any server filesystems that store information you need to keep around." For each, record: location, system name, system type, the service/product that uses it, data type, and data size. ## Then Assess Business Impact Next, "business impact analysis": for each asset, understand what happens to the company if it disappears. Talk to the people who create, use, and manage it — developers, DBAs, analysts, business ops. Ask about existing availability expectations (SLAs/OLAs), which usually don't exist at less-mature companies — "this is where you come in." The inventory becomes the backbone for [[Recovery Objectives Define Data Protection]]. --- *Source: [[Web Operations]] (Allspaw & Robbins, O'Reilly 2010) — Ch 14 — Storage*