World domination does not happen from day one for startups, warns Paula Long, serial entrepreneur and current CEO and Co-Founder of DataGravity, Inc. “It is a risk game,” she elaborated in a heartfelt talk with John Furrier and Dave Vellante. theCUBE co-hosts and the charismatic guest sat down during VMware, Inc.’s annual VMworld conference to dissect in depth the trends of metadata.

Everyone seems to agree it is all about unlocking the data that has been stored inside. The trend is simple: data-aware storage. Long reiterated that “the obvious is sometimes revolutionary.” In times when everybody seems focused on figuring out how to harness data protection, data governance, insights and innovations, performing analytics outside the storage, Long proposes to go “inside the house” and take a look around.

“We’ve integrated a layer into the storage array that captures all the metadata and that can do full text indexing on your storage, so we can start to give you insights,” explained Long, who detailed how DataGravity could help its customers with everything from PII issues in the array to sales trends.

“Data protection is not just backup,” stated Long, “but understanding who has access to the information and understanding who should have access to it.” In her opinion, the best place to turn to for insights is the data storage. She explained that DataGravity took all the data services, enhanced them using storage metadata, and serviced them to customers without any need for programming on their part, and also free of charge. “We think you have the right to have information about the data you just bought to store,” Long said.

• Who needs DataGravity’s services?

Recognizing the importance of that kind of service, Vellante pushed for more details, asking Long what DataGravity’s “foot in the door” is. That would be “content rich datastore,” meaning DataGravity could be found in mid-range departments, colleges, retail, law offices, and basically anywhere there is a rich set of unstructured data content. According to Long, the unstructured data content is “where you are most exposed, and where you are least looking for data,” promising that DataGravity will help bring that to light.

See Long’s entire segment below.