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there is no simple, universal, method of classifying the needs of all the information stakeholders.
information. Someone, somewhere within your organi- Consider employing multiple methods of classifying
zation, has to define the “rules of identification,” or information if it is seems appropriate.
the descriptive metadata. Equally important, is the
metadata for the right to use those rules of identifica- If information classification is an emerging priority in
tion. (Does anyone remember that passport and cus- your organization, the first step should be to obtain
toms information of the U.S. presidential candidates “C-Level” sponsorship. As you consider an informa-
DMF SNIA
were leaked to the press last year? Someone had mis- tion classification project, think of who the stakehold-
used the right to search confidential government data.) ers are. You might be surprised by the number people
SNIA Search engines represent the most popular method of and their scope of responsibility (and make no mis-
classifying information. According to ComScore’s take; the storage team is one of many stakeholders).
qSearch, 221.2 Europeans conducted 24.6 billion Can you describe the characteristics of the information
searches during the month of March 2008
2
. However, to be classified and its management needs?
popular as they are, internet search engines are not Collaboration is the key to understanding these
the way that corporate information is usually classified. requirements.
Few companies knowingly allow public crawlers to The SNIA DMF Information Lifecycle Management
index private corporate websites. There are many dif- Initiative (ILMI) in conjunction with SNIA’s End User
ferent brands of search engines designed to traverse Community has two projects underway to assist in the
corporate file systems; indexing and categorizing every- creation and management of metadata for classifica-
thing they find. The descriptive metadata; the rules of tion. The ILM Maturity Model is intended to be a guide
interpretation are key to differentiating between valu- for end users to interpret and improve IT policies and
able information and worthless “noise.” procedures related to ILM (including the creation and
management of metadata). The second project is
Content management systems and preservation reposi- focused on Storage Service Attributes; its goal is to
tories are usually the choice of enterprises for critical identify a “standard” set of metrics (i.e., descriptive
business records. Both create indices of information metadata) for ILM.
for search and discovery. However, these are resources
that manage only a small fraction of the total of a The Data Management Forum is also wrapping up work
companies’ electronically stored information“ or “ESI.” on a White Paper entitled “The Vision of
Furthermore, in most cases, an information object is Information-Centric Management” which describes the
rarely “born” into a content management system or a collaboration process in much greater detail. Visit the
preservation repository. Today’s enterprise needs to DMF ILMI webpage (www.snia.org/forums/dmf/pro-
classify an information object from the moment of cre- grams/ilmi ) for more information on our programs and
ation to ensure that it is properly managed throughout publications. Or join our discussions on these and
its lifecycle. That philosophy requires a well-defined other topics on the DMF Community site
set of descriptive metadata. (community.snia-dmf.org ). We welcome your experi-
ence, input and insight.
No single one of these solutions is likely to address all Next article: “Building the Collaborative Team”
1 Understanding Metadata; NISO Press;
http://www.niso.org/publications/press/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf;2004.
2 “comScore Releases March 2008 European Search Rankings”; comScore.com;
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2208
FEB 09 WWW.SNSEUROPE.COM
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