# User Guide

## Guardian Workspace

The Guardian Workspace is the directory where your work is stored. It includes the Domain Inventories, Evaluation Summaries, and Case Archives for each domain that you activate, inventory, evaluate, and create support cases for.

Although you select the Guardian Workspace location, it must be separate from the Guardian installation directory where the BEA Guardian executable, Signature Repository, Guardian Registry, and other application files reside. This requirement preserves the implicit contract with the customer that their data will never be removed, even during uninstallation.

Although the documents in the Guardian Workspace are persisted as XML files, they are best viewed through the Guardian Graphical User Interface. Using the Guardian Graphical User Interface allows both better formatting and better protection against unintended edits or deletions.

#### Related Concepts

- Domain Inventory
- Domain
- Signature Repository
- Guardian Registry

#### Related Tasks

- Activate Domain
- Inventory Domain
- Evaluate Domain
- Submit Support Case

#### Related Reference

- Domain Inventory
- Evaluation Summary

#### Related Getting Started

- Installation