- From: Ian B. Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:34:42 +0000
- To: w3c-news@w3.org
- Message-Id: <1200414882.11957.21.camel@localhost>
W3C Opens Data on the Web with SPARQL
Powerful Technology for Querying Distributed and Diverse Data
http://www.w3.org/ -- 15 January 2008 -- W3C announced today
the publication of SPARQL, the key standard for opening up
data on the Semantic Web. With SPARQL query technology,
pronounced "sparkle," people can focus on what they want to
know rather than on the database technology or data format
used behind the scenes to store the data. Because SPARQL
queries express high-level goals, it is easier to extend them
to unanticipated data sources, or even to port them to new
applications.
"Trying to use the Semantic Web without SPARQL is like trying
to use a relational database without SQL," explained Tim
Berners-Lee, W3C Director. "SPARQL makes it possible to query
information from databases and other diverse sources in the
wild, across the Web."
See the full text of the release and W3C Member testimonials
below.
- Ian Jacobs Head of W3C Communications
-------
Contact
-------
Contact Americas, Australia --
Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>, +1.718.260.9447 or
+1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170
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Resources
---------
Press release (English):
http://www.w3.org/2007/12/sparql-pressrelease.html.en
Press release (French):
http://www.w3.org/2007/12/sparql-pressrelease.html.fr
Press release (Japanese):
http://www.w3.org/2007/12/sparql-pressrelease.html.ja
W3C Member Testimonials
http://www.w3.org/2007/12/sparql-testimonial
Recommendations:
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/
Semantic Web FAQ:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ
Semantic Web Use Cases:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases/
W3C Semantic Web Home:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
-----------------------------
English text of press release
-----------------------------
http://www.w3.org/ -- 15 January 2008 -- W3C announced today
the publication of SPARQL, the key standard for opening up
data on the Semantic Web. With SPARQL query technology,
pronounced "sparkle," people can focus on what they want to
know rather than on the database technology or data format
used behind the scenes to store the data. Because SPARQL
queries express high-level goals, it is easier to extend them
to unanticipated data sources, or even to port them to new
applications.
"Trying to use the Semantic Web without SPARQL is like trying
to use a relational database without SQL," explained Tim
Berners-Lee, W3C Director. "SPARQL makes it possible to query
information from databases and other diverse sources in the
wild, across the Web."
There are already 14 known implementations of SPARQL, many of
which are open source.
SPARQL Overcomes Traditional Query Language Limitations of
Local Searches, Single Formats
Many successful query languages exist, including standards
such as SQL and XQuery. These were primarily designed for
queries limited to a single product, format, type of
information, or local data store. Traditionally, it has been
necessary to formulate the same high-level query differently
depending on application or the specific arrangement chosen
for the relational database. And when querying multiple data
sources it has been necessary to write logic to merge the
results. These limitations have imposed higher developer costs
and created barriers to incorporating new data sources.
The goal of the Semantic Web is to enable people to share,
merge, and reuse data globally. SPARQL is designed for use at
the scale of the Web, and thus enables queries over
distributed data sources, independent of format. Creating a
single query across diverse data stores is easier than having
to create multiple queries; it also costs less and provides
richer results.
Because SPARQL has no tie to a specific database format, it
can be used to take advantage of the tidal wave of Web 2.0
data and mash it up with other Semantic Web
resources. Furthermore, because disparate data sources may not
have the same 'shape' or share the same properties, SPARQL is
designed to query non-uniform data.
SPARQL Turns Data Access into a Web Service
The combination of the SPARQL query language and protocol
creates a Web service in its purest sense; running on top of
HTTP or SOAP, it provides a standard Web service for anything
which asks a question.
"SPARQL's focus on querying the data models saves time for
developers; there's no need for a host of little Web services
to retrieve different aspects of the state of a system,"
explained Lee Feigenbaum, Chair of the RDF Data Access Working
Group. "This allows the user of the SPARQL endpoint to ask any
question -- it is as though they could design their own
interface instead of having to work with a limited set of
fixed services."
The SPARQL specification defines a query language and a
protocol and works with the other core Semantic Web
technologies from W3C: Resource Description Framework (RDF)
for representing data; RDF Schema; Web Ontology Language (OWL)
for building vocabularies; and Gleaning Resource Descriptions
from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL), for automatically
extracting Semantic Web data from documents. SPARQL also makes
use of other W3C standards found in Web services
implementations, such as Web Services Description Language
(WSDL).
W3C's Data Access Working Group Includes Industry Leaders in
Database Technology, Web Applications
W3C RDF Data Access Working Group produced the three SPARQL
Recommendations issued today: the SPARQL Query Language for
RDF, The SPARQL Protocol for RDF, and the SPARQL Query Results
XML Format. The Working Group includes invited experts and
participants from Agfa-Gevaert N. V.; Asemantics S.R.L.; Clark
& Parsia LLC; Cleveland Clinic; Eindhoven University of
Technology; Free University of Bozen-Bolzano; Garlik; HP; IBM
Corporation; Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (MEI);
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (NTT); OpenLink Software;
Oracle; and Profium, Ltd. The SPARQL Testimonials page
contains statements of support and commitments to implement
the new Recommendations.
W3C continues to enhance the relationship between the Semantic
Web and traditional databases; see the report from the W3C
Workshop on RDF Access to Relational Databases from October
2007.
About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international
consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and
the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C
primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web
standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth
for the Web. Over 400 organizations are Members of the
Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the
European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
(ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in
Japan,and has additional Offices worldwide. For more
information see http://www.w3.org/
-----------------------
W3C Member Testimonials
-----------------------
Asemantics
Asemantics S.r.l., the European Semantic Web company has been
actively contributing to the W3C DAWG standardization process
and successfully deploying W3C's SPARQL query language and
protocol based real-world solutions inside public and private
sector; for the European Space Agency (ESA/ESRIN) we
successfully built ad-hoc dynamic satellite image galleries and
an EO interoperability catalog search engine using the
SPARQL. We worked together with Rijkswaterstaat (the Dutch
Water Authority) to create an RDF based library of national
water measurement data about more than four centuries of
different physical and biological measurements related to sea,
coastal and inland water; catalog and detailed search are
internally being performed using SPARQL. Inside the Joost
venture we successfully used RDF related technologies including
the SPARQL query and language and protocol to build dynamic and
flexible digital asset management tools to bridge content
owners, metadata engineering and management related
workflows. We are working together with the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to build a next generation feed
aggregator inside the Memoryshare initiative which internally
stores information in RDF in order to preserve all richness of
the original information and all relations among the data;
which is then being queried dynamically using the SPARQL query
language.
Asemantics see SPARQL as a major W3C contribution which will
enable next generation Internet semantic applications in the
mainstream.
-- Alberto Reggiori, CTO Asemantics S.r.l.
Clark & Parsia
Clark & Parsia LLC recognizes SPARQL as an important
development in the evolution of the Semantic Web. By providing
a standard query language for RDF, SPARQL offers developers a
"universal query language" that can be used to access
information stored in a wide range of systems, including
metadata repositories, web services, and legacy information
systems. Clark & Parsia supports SPARQL query answering in its
OWL DL reasoner Pellet and is readying the first Pellet release
with SPARQL extensions for OWL DL.
-- Michael Smith, Senior Engineer and W3C AC Representative, Clark
& Parsia LLC
Computas AS
Computas AS is currently building systems for its customers
where SPARQL is a fundamental core component. When conducting
feasibility studies, we found that there are allready many high
quality off-the-shelf components that puts the vision of the
data web within reach, also for smaller enterprises.
We are pleased to see SPARQL promoted to a W3C Recommendation,
as it provides a stable platform for further work. We are
allready experimenting with extensions to SPARQL, and will work
with the W3C and its membership in the work that lies ahead.
-- Kjetil Kjernsmo, Senior Knowledge Engineer, Computas AS
CWI
CWI is a strong supporter of the W3C activities in general and
of the steps taken towards a standardization of SPARQL in
particular. Use of SPARQL significantly improves the bridge
between data- and document-oriented information. CWI's
contribution will bear fruit in its ongoing activities on the
open source database management system MonetDB/{SQL,XQuery},
which will soon evolve into MonetDB/SPARQL.
-- Prof. Dr. J.K. Lenstra, Director, CWI
Eli Lilly
Eli Lilly and Company is a world leader in innovative
applications of technology to discover and develop
pharmaceutical products to better people's lives. Accordingly,
Lilly is using W3C Semantic Web technologies to help scientists
gather information about drug targets, and maintain knowledge
about experiments. In particular, we use the SPARQL query
language in conjunction with an OWL ontology to find out
information about experiments that have been undertaken. We are
pleased to see SPARQL become a W3C Recommendation.
-- Susie Stephens, Principal Research Scientist for Open
Innovation, Eli Lilly
Garlik
Garlik make extensive use of the W3C's SPARQL query language
andprotocol. Two of our Products, DataPatrol and QDOS use
SPARQLcompliant RDF stores as their core data store.DataPatrol
uses SPARQL as an access point to a large, complex andrapidly
changing data structure, while building on top of HTTP
hasallowed us to provide high levels of security in a standards
complaintway.QDOS uses SPARQL to provide a standards compliant,
web accessiblebackend for a Web 2.0 platform. SPARQL provides a
ready-made HTTP-basedquery interface which is capable of
providing third party developers withaccess to public data.
-- Tom Ilube, Founder & CEO, Garlik
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard is pleased to support the SPARQL
Recommendations.
SPARQL is a key element for integrated information access
across information silos and across business boundaries. HP
customers can benefit from better information utilization by
employing semantic web technologies.
HP's Jena Semantic Web framework has a complete implementation
of query language, protocol and result set processing. Jena is
open-source, freely available, with a large and active
developer community.
HP is pleased to announce the first full release of SDB, a new
SPARQL database system for Jena that leverages existing
database installations to give enterprise-grade storage and
query of RDF.
-- Jean-Luc Chatelain, CTO HP Software Information Management
INRIA
The SPARQL Recommendation sets the standard for querying RDF data.
INRIA is very pleased with the W3C efforts converging towards a
robust query language that will offer a common way to extract RDF
data from the Semantic Web. INRIA teams have invested efforts in
implementing the Recommendation and deliver right away
SPARQL-compliant tools. The CORESE search engine for the
semantic web can evaluate SPARQL queries against RDF, OWL and rule
content. We also developed PSPARQL: a query language which can
express all SPARQL queries as well as extensions with path
expressions allowing more general queries. A PSPARQL query engine
is also available.
-- Pierre Paradinas, Head of Technological Development, INRIA
OpenLink Software
SPARQL bridges the gap between the vision and the manifestation
of a Web of semantically interlinked data (Linked Data). This
powerful mechanism helps expose and explain the data
integration prowess of our Virtuoso Universal Server and
OpenLink Data Spaces products, across all levels of the
Internet, Intranet, and Extranet.
By leveraging Web architecture in devising this standard --
comprised of an open query language, communications protocol,
and results serialization format -- the W3C has ingeniously
delivered an unobtrusive bridge between the current Web of
Documents and the emerging Web of Linked Data. SPARQL will
ultimately enhance the value of the Web for everyone.
-- Kingsley Idehen, President & CEO, OpenLink Software
Oracle
Oracle congratulates the W3C on achieving 'Recommendation'
status for SPARQL. As an active participant in this working
group, Oracle believes the standardization of SPARQL will play
an instrumental role in achieving the vision of the Semantic
Web. The community's work is intended to help organizations
more effectively discover, automate, integrate and re-use data
across various applications.
Oracle Database 11g Semantic Store provides native support for
efficient and scalable storage, bulk loading, inferencing, and
graph-pattern based querying of semantic data represented using
W3C's RDF, RDFS, and OWL languages. The Oracle Jena adaptor
allows querying of semantic data stored in Oracle using the
SPARQL query language while leveraging the performance and
scalability of Oracle's Semantic Store.
-- Don Deutsch, vice president Standards Strategy and
Architecture, Oracle
Profium
Profium provides software solutions for rich digital content
management by leveraging the latest Semantic Web
technologies. Our software solutions provide for multimedia
archiving, centralized metadata management and real-time
routing of content for cross-media publishing. Profium's
Metadata Server product uses RDF data model and SPARQL as query
language and for us, a standardized query language has been a
most welcome addition to the Semantic Web technology stack and
we foresee great interoperability possibilities in the future.
-- Jari Harjula, Product manager, Profium Ltd.
Talis
Talis is delighted to see the publication of the SPARQL
Recommendations. We believe that this is an important milestone
in making the Semantic Web usable for a broad class of
applications in the enterprise. The Talis Semantic Web Platform
provides its users with services using the SPARQL query
language and protocol to allow searching of their data. We look
forward to SPARQL being incorporated in many more applications
enabling Web-scale integration of data between and within
organisations.
-- Ian Davis, CTO, Talis Group Ltd
--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel: +1 718 260-9447
Received on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 16:34:46 UTC