Hi Kingsley, (01)
I think your response raises a question. Was Len looking for ways to simply
represent relational data in RDF/OWL or was he looking to extract semantics
from the data ? I reckon it's not beyond the wit of most computer scientists
to cook up a projection from RDBMS to RDF - certainly no more challenging
than mapping to an OO structure, and that's been done for years (tools to
re-engineer SQL databases into CORBA/COM APIs have been around for ages).
Some projections offer better performance / usability than others, but
that's the only aspect that's really open for innovation. (02)
Trying to automatically extract semantics from RDBMS is herring of an
altogether different colour. Several people claim to be able to do this, but
having looked at some of the results I've got to say their view of
"semantic" sets a far lower bar than mine. I even had an academic try to
reject a conference paper on legacy data re-engineering I'd written on the
basis that my work was redundant because his system did it all
automatically. That's nearly two years ago. I fully expected he'd be a
billionaire by now. (03)
I spent years mapping legacy data into "semantically richer" formats such as
ISO10303 (ok, maybe not much richer) and ISO15926, and it always comes down
to the data, not the data model. You can guarantee the data modeller got it
wrong when they built the system, and the users have been working against
rather than with the model for years. Unless you have a good sniff around in
the data, you'll never get a real picture of the true semantics (i.e. what
the data is actually referring to in the real world). That's certainly the
case for production systems that have been in use for some time (by real
users, not students faking data). I wrote a paper for Cutter on this
recently - http://www.cutter.com/offers/forensicIS.html. (04)
I never had a formal method for re-engineering data in those days. In recent
years I've been using Chris Partridge's BORO Method. It seems to work pretty
well as far as I can tell. Don't tell him I said that though. (05)
Cheers
--
Ian (06)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kingsley Idehen
Sent: 06 October 2009 14:58
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology-based database integration (07)
Len Yabloko wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Once in a while someone on this forum asks about applications of
ontologies to database integration. My company is developing a product
called OntoBase that is designed to do just that. As a part of DoD funded
project I need to conduct a small study integrating various relational
databases containing similar information. Is anyone interested to
participate?
>
> Best Reagrds,
>
> Len Yabloko, Owner/CEO
> Next Generation Software
> www.ontospace.net
>
>
>
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Len, (08)
I assume you've seen:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/Rdb2RdfXG/StateOfTheArt ? (09)
-- (010)
Regards, (011)
Kingsley Idehen Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO
OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com (012)
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