The Data Protection Manifesto

In my last post for 2014, I want to touch briefly on a few rules I think everyone in our industry ought to follow.

We work in data protection, and that creates certain obligations on us to do our jobs well – after all, we’re entrusted to safeguard the data and systems used by the businesses we work for. Doing the job right comes from following a code of conduct (regardless of whether that’s official or unofficial). And with that, here’s the rules that highlight to me the key attitudes required in this field:

1. I will be a data protection advocate.
2. All data is important unless demonstrably shown otherwise.
3. Capacity growth doesn’t come at the expense of data protection.
4. Data protection only works with a healthy data lifecycle.
5. I will know my vendor SLAs.
6. I will meet my SLAs.
7. I will master monitoring, reporting and trending.
8. I will not leverage backup to extend primary storage.
9. I will protect backups.
10. I will test.
11. I will document.
12. I will develop processes.
13. I will follow processes.
14. My loyalty will be to the business and its requirements, not the toys, clothing or merchandise offered by vendors.
15. I will be neutral in the evaluation of technology.