Kingsley Idehen's Typepad

Introducing Virtuoso Universal Server (Cloud Edition) for Amazon EC2

What is it?

A pre-installed edition of Virtuoso for Amazon's EC2 Cloud platform.

What does it offer?

From a Web Entrepreneur perspective it offers:

1. Low cost entry point to a game-changing Web 3.0+ (and beyond) platform that combines SQL, RDF, XML, and Web Services functionality
2. Flexible variable cost model (courtesy of EC2 DevPay) tightly bound to revenue generated by your services
3. Delivers federated and/or centralized model flexibility for you SaaS based solutions
4. Simple entry point for developing and deploying sophisticated database driven applications (SQL or RDF Linked Data Web oriented)
5. Complete framework for exploiting OpenID, OAuth (including Role enhancements) that simplifies exploitation of these vital Identity and Data Access technologies
6. Easily implement RDF Linked Data based Mail, Blogging, Wikis, Bookmarks, Calendaring, Discussion Forums, Tagging, Social-Networking as Data Space (data containers) features of your application or service offering
7. Instant alleviation of challenges (e.g. service costs and agility) associated with Data Portability and Open Data Access across Web 2.0 data silos
8. LDAP integration for Intranet / Extranet style applications.

From the DBMS engine perspective it provides you with one or more pre-configured instances of Virtuoso that enable immediate exploitation of the following services:

1. RDF Database (a Quad Store with SPARQL & SPARUL Language & Protocol support)
2. SQL Database (with ODBC, JDBC, OLE-DB, ADO.NET, and XMLA driver access)
3. XML Database (XML Schema, XQuery/Xpath, XSLT, Full Text Indexing)
4. Full Text Indexing.

From a Middleware perspective it provides:

1. RDF Views (Wrappers / Semantic Covers) over SQL, XML, and other data sources accessible via SOAP or REST style Web Services
2. Sponger Service for converting non RDF information resources into RDF Linked Data "on the fly" via a large collection of pre-installed RDFizer Cartridges.

From the Web Server Platform perspective it provides an alternative to LAMP stack components such as MySQL and Apace by offering

1. HTTP Web Server
2. WebDAV Server
3. Web Application Server (includes PHP runtime hosting)
4. SOAP or REST style Web Services Deployment
5. RDF Linked Data Deployment
6. SPARQL (SPARQL Query Language) and SPARUL (SPARQL Update Language) endpoints
7. Virtuoso Hosted PHP packages for MediaWiki, Drupal, Wordpress, and phpBB3 (just install the relevant Virtuoso Distro. Package).

From the general System Administrator's perspective it provides:

1. Online Backups (Backup Set dispatched to S3 buckets, FTP, or HTTP/WebDAV server locations)
2. Synchronized Incremental Backups to Backup Set locations
3. Backup Restore from Backup Set location (without exiting to EC2 shell).

Higher level user oriented offerings include:

1. OpenLink Data Explorer front-end for exploring the burgeoning Linked Data Web
2. Ajax based SPARQL Query Builder (iSPARQL) that enables SPARQL Query construction by Example
3. Ajax based SQL Query Builder (QBE) that enables SQL Query construction by Example.

For Web 2.0 / 3.0 users, developers, and entrepreneurs it offers it includes Distributed Collaboration Tools & Social Media realm functionality courtesy of ODS that includes:

1. Point of presence on the Linked Data Web that meshes your Identity and your Data via URIs
2. System generated Social Network Profile & Contact Data via FOAF?
3. System generated SIOC (Semantically Interconnected Online Community) Data Space (that includes a Social Graph) exposing all your Web data in RDF Linked Data form
4. System generated OpenID and automatic integration with FOAF
5. Transparent Data Integration across Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Twitter, and any other Web 2.0 data space equipped with RSS / Atom support and/or REST style Web Services
6. In-built support for SyncML which enables data synchronization with Mobile Phones.

How Do I Get Going with It?

• Standard Installation Guide
• Personal or Service Specific DBpedia Installation Guide

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Your Personal Edition of DBpedia in the Clouds

We are just about done with an end-to-end workflow pattern that enables reconstitution of DBpedia 3.2 instances in the Clouds courtesy of Virtuoso and EC2.

Basically this is how it works.

1. Instantiate a Virtuoso EC2 AMI (paid variety)
2. Install the special EC2 extensions (ec2ext_dav.vad) VAD via the Conductor UI or iSQL
3. Restore the Virtuoso+DBpedia backup from our S3 bucket
4. After approx. 1 hr, you will have a complete DBpedia replica in your own data space on the Linked Data Web.

DBpedia replica implies:

1. SPARQL Endpoint
2. Linked Data Viewer Pages (as you see in the public DBpedia instance)
3. All requisite re-write rules for URI de-referencing and attribution (i.e., low cost triples that links back to main DBpedia using terms from our little Attribution Ontology)
4. All the inference rules for UMBEL, YAGO, OpenCYC, and DBpedia-OWL data dictionaries
5. All Full Text Indexes
6. All Bitmap Indexes.

Tomorrow is the official go live day (due to last minute price changes), but you can instantiate a paid Virtuoso AMI starting now :-)

To be continued...

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Master Data Management (MDM) & RDF based Linked Data

It is getting clearer by the second that Master Data Management and RDF based Linked data are two realms separated by a common desire to provide "Entity Oriented Data Access" to heterogeneous data sources (within the enterprise and/or across the World Wide Web).

Here is how I see Linked Data providing tangible value to MDM tools vendors and users:

1. Open access to Entities across MDM instances served up by different MDM solutions acting as Linked Data publishers (i.e., expose MDM Entities as RDF resources endowed with de-referencable URIs thereby enabling Hyperdata-style linking)
2. Use of RDF-ization middleware to hook disparate data sources (SQL, XML, and other data sources) into existing MDM packages (i.e., the MDM solutions become consumers of RDF Linked Data).

Of course Virtuoso was designed and developed to deliver the above from day one (circa. 1998 re. the core and 2005 re. the use of RDF for the final mile) as depicted below:

Related

• Other MDM related posts

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YODA & the Data FORCE

The original design document (by TimBL) that lead to the WWW (*an important read*) was very clear about the need to create an "information space" that connects heterogeneous data sources. Unfortunately, in trying to create a moniker to distinguish one aspect of the Web (the Linked Document Web) from the part that was overlooked (the Linked Data Web), we ended up with a project code name that's fundamentally a misnomer in the form of: "The Semantic Web".

If we could just take "The Semantic Web" moniker for what it was -- a code name for an aspect of the Web -- and move on, things will get much clearer, fast!

Basically, what is/was the "Semantic Web" should really have been code named: ("You" Oriented Data Access) as a play on: Yoda's appreciation of the FORCE (Fact ORiented Connected Entities) -- the power of inter galactic, interlinked, structured data, fashioned by the World Wide Web courtesy of the HTTP protocol.

As stated in a earlier post, the next phase of the Web is all about the magic of entity "You". The single most important item of reference to every Web user would be the Person Entity ID (URI). Just by remembering your Entity ID, you will have intelligent pathways across, and into, the FORCE that the Linked Data Web delivers. The quality of the pathways and increased density of the FORCE are the keys to high SDQ (tomorrows SEO). Thus, the SDQ of URIs will ultimately be the unit determinant of value to Web Users, along the following personal lines, hence the critical platform questions:

• Does your platform give me Identity (a URI) with high SDQ?
• Do the Data Source Names (URIs) in your Data Spaces deliver high SDQ?

While most industry commentators continue to ponder and pontificate about what "The Semantic Web" is (unfortunately), the real thing (the "FORCE") is already here, and self-enhancing rapidly.

Assuming we now accept the FORCE is simply an RDF based Linked Data moniker, and that RDF Linked Data is all about the Web as a structured database, we should start to move our attention over to practical exploitation of this burgeoning global database, and in doing so we should not discard knowledge from the past such as the many great examples available gratis from the Relational Database realm. For instance, we should start paying attention to the discovery, development, and deployment of high level tools such as query builders, report writers, and intelligence oriented analytic tools, none of which should -- at first point of interaction -- expose raw RDF or the SPARQL query language. Along similar lines of thinking, we also need development environments and frameworks that are counterparts to Visual Studio, ACCESS, File Maker, and the like.

Related

• Numerati & The Magic of You!

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Entity Oriented Data Access

Recent perturbations in Data Access and Data Management technology realms are clear signs of an imminent inflection. In a nutshell, the focus of data access is moving from the "Logical Level" (what you see if you've ever looked at a DBMS schema derived from an Entity Data Model) to the "Conceptual Level" (i.e., the Entity Model becoming concrete).

In recent times I've stumbled across Master Data Management (MDM) which is all about entities that provide holistic views of enterprise data (or what I call: Context Lenses). I've also stumbled across emerging tensions in the .NET realm between Linq to Entities and Linq to SQL, where in either case the fundamental issues comes down to the optimal paths "Conceptual Level Access" over the "Logical Logical Level" when dealing with data access in the .NET realm.

Strangely, the emerging realm of RDF Linked Data, MDM, and .NET's Entity Frameworks, remain strangely disconnected.

Another oddity is the obvious, but barely acknowledged, blurring of the lines between the "traditional enterprise employee" and the "individual Web netizen". The fusion between these entities is one of the most defining characteristics of how the Web is reshaping the data landscape.

At the current time, I tend to crystalize my data access world view under the moniker: YODA ("You" Oriented Data Access), based on the following:

1. Entities are the new focal point of data access, management, and integration
2. "You" are the entry point (Data Source Name) into this new realm of inter connected Entities that the Web exposes
3. "You" the "Person" Entity is associated with many other "Things" such as "Organizations", "Other People", "Books", "Music", "Subject Matter" etc.
4. "You" the "Person" needs Identity in this new global database, which is why "You" need to Identify "Yourself" using an an HTTP based Entity ID (aka. URI)
5. When "You" have an ID for "Yourself" it becomes much easier for the essence of "You" to be discovered via the Web
6. When "Others" have IDs for "Themselves" on the Web it becomes much easier for "You" to serendipitously discover or explicitly "Find" things on the Web.

Related

• Is LINQ to SQL truly dead?
• Virtuoso, Linked Data, and Linq2Rdf
• Enterprise 0.0, Linked Data, and the Semantic Data Web (*an old post*)

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Virtuoso Installation Screencasts

As promised in an earlier post titled: Virtuoso, PHP 3.5 Runtime Hosting, phpBB3, and Linked Data, here are direct links to the "silent movies" mentioned in the past:

• Installing Virtuoso on Vista with PHP Hosting
• Installing Virtuoso on Mac OS X (Leopard) with PHP Hosting
• EC2 Installation Part 1 (*AMIs take about 5 minutes to get assembled*)
• EC2 Installation Part 2 (*post AMI creation part*)

Virtuoso is an extremely compact product that is very easy to install. The ease of installation carries over to the PHP runtime when bound to Virtuoso.

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