Requirements: tooling & named graphs

Hi everyone,

Cambridge Semantics plans to implement the RDB2RDF standards in our Anzo 
software. To this end, our use cases are not immediately driven by 
specific relational schemas (though we may be able to contribute some 
from customers that we have worked with), but rather by requirements of 
our products. To this end, we've identified 2.5 requirements for the 
RDB2RDF mapping language:


1/ Tooling

It must be straightforward to create tooling that generates mappings. 
Most of the candidate designs I've seen have no problem here, but I 
wanted to include it anyway. Declarative XML- or RDF-based mappings are 
very easy to target. Mappings based on less structured query forms (SQL 
views or SPARQL CONSTRUCT queries) are less desirable but are doable. 
 From our perspective with respect to tooling, a SPARQL CONSTRUCT-based 
approach is are preferable to a SQL DDL-based approach.


2/ Named Graphs

The mapping language should be capable of mapping a relational schema 
into SPARQL's named graph model. The granularity of the graphs should be 
tweakable within the mapping -- for example, we sometimes will map an 
entire table into a single graph, and other times we will map specific 
rows/resources into their own graphs.


...and a half/ Update

I realize that updating the relational database is beyond the scope of 
our charter. That said, we would like to consider the potential 
extensibility of the mapping approach chosen to handle (some cases of) 
writing data back to a relational schema. (Either via SPARQL Update or 
via triple/quad removes & adds.


(As we begin to compare and contrast design candidates, these are some 
of the criteria that we'd like to use to evaluate the possibilities.)

Lee

Received on Monday, 8 March 2010 03:09:37 UTC