You may not know Francis Bacon, the great English philosopher and one of the founders of the modern system of political philosophy, but you do know his phrase, “knowledge is power.” This phrase was quoted from Bacon’s Meditationes Sacrae, published in 1597 and later adopted by Thomas Jefferson on at least four occasions beginning in 1817, in connection with the establishment of a state university in Virginia. Jefferson expanded upon this phrase in a letter to George Ticknor referring to state legislatures by adding, “...the members of which do not generally possess information enough to percieve [sic] the important truths, that knolege [sic] is power, that knolege [sic] is safety, and that knolege [sic] is happiness.”

Over 200 years later, these words have never been more applicable — especially in the IT industry. In order for IT individuals to have the “power” to process an unfathomable amount of daily workloads, they need an immense amount of “knowledge” to ascertain the network’s  “important truths” e.g., what’s connected, what is the hardware or software’s current state, and who has access? With this information, IT professionals can mitigate security risks to ensure the “safety” of digital assets as well as keep all data-dependant personnel, such as human resources, finance, legal, and all members of the C-Suite “happy” with a constant flow of data needed to perform their jobs.