MarketCap & Aduna: Semantic Web is booming

September 23, 2008

Research, done by MarketCap in cooperation with Aduna, shows that more than 60 percent of companies with over 200 employees, intend to invest in a project that uses semantic technology (Web 3.0) within a year's time.

Almost 10 percent already uses semantic technology, or has already defined a semantic technology project. The fact that 60 percent of the companies plan to invest indicates an enormous increase of the use of semantic technology in the coming 12 months.

Companies abound in information, but only a tiny amount is used by managers, either because most of the information is not visible or connections are not, or cannot be made. This is the situation mid-2008, but with the rise of semantic technologies this will change drastically in the coming years. More and more information will come to light and it will become easier to judge its usefulness.

The research also shows that almost 40% of the companies can search both internal and external sources at the same time. So an application can, for example, search resumes not only in its own database, but also on the Internet, for example on LinkedIn. Adding the use of semantic technologies in this example provides a great advantage by simultaneously showing connections between the results. But although semantic technologies are usually associated with enterprise search, they can be applied in many other cases. Ralph Pere, Aduna's CEO states: "Semantic technology is mainly associated with enriched (enterprise) search, but it offers far more than just search. Enriching and relating data(-sources) may result in unexpected insights. Most of Aduna's customers use Aduna's technologies for innovation and business intelligence purposes."

In spite of the fact that a lot of research and development has been done for (enterprise) search, there are plenty of opportunities for improvement. And even though 40% of the companies indicates it can search both internal and external sources at the same time, this also means that 60% cannot. Simultaneous search in both internal and external sources is considered a huge advantage in a search engine. This quality is rated higher than 'search using synonyms' and 'refinement and filtering options'.

Also, visualization of search results meets a long-felt need. After having seen an example of visualization, almost 65% indicated that this would help finding results. And 75% indicated that the support given during the search process, in the form of suggestions given by the search engine, is very useful.

Semantic technology and SOA

Research done by MarketCap and Aduna also shows that semantic technology is associated with SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and application integration. Ralph Pere from Aduna adds: "A lot of money is invested in application integration and SOA. The fact that applications can communicate may lead to a nice conversation, but it only becomes useful if they know what they are talking about. This can be achieved by enriching and relating the data that is exchanged. In this context, Aduna's technologies, which are based on semantic web standards, offer a flexible and scalable solution." To complement this, Nicole Horevoorts from MarketCap adds: "We have seen many SOA projects that started out by focusing on technologically connecting several applications. This means that the focus was on exchanging data-elements between applications. So the starting point is the flow of data within an organization. But the main purpose is forgotten: the implementation of an information (process)flow."

Aduna joins the Semantic Exchange

What is Semantic Exchange?

Semantic Exchange is a collaborative industry news, research, and education initiative about all things web 3.0 and semantic web, and sponsored by industry leading semantic technology providers. Whether you are a newcomer to semantic technologies or already have experience developing and applying them, the goal of Semantic Exchange is to answer your questions, help you better keep up with the rapid pace of technology and infrastructure development, and connect with the people and companies making the next stage of the internet happen.

Semantic Exchange educational activities include monthly webinars, briefings, publications, and media articles. It's hands on, too. Semantic Exchange partners are helping build an open collaborative industry news, research, and education portal about all things web 3.0 and semantic web. This site is part semantic community wiki, part internet magazine, part technology showcase for new capabilities, and part knowledge outfitter where you can gain access to both commercial and open source tools, widgets, building blocks, and solution blueprints. Also, Semantic Exchange is sponsoring a "smart innovators laboratory" where public and private sector organizations can gain access to expertise, research, and technologies, and can conduct pilot tests to prove out the benefits of semantic solutions.

Who are the SX Partners?

Industry leading organizations that support the Semantic Exchange with technology, services, and content. The Semantic Exchange education initiative is supported by forward-looking organizations such as Aduna. SX partners provide semantic technology based products, services, solutions, and professional services. Some are showcasing their capabilities in ways that add functionality to this site. Some provide educational seminars and workshops. Also, SX partners provide opportunities for you to experience advanced capabilities through demos, sandboxes, and trials that you can access through this site.

Why do you care?

Web 3.0 is the next phase of internet evolution. It uses semantic technologies to cope with challenges of scale, complexity, security, and mobility, as well as provide intelligent, rich media interaction and autonomous behavior that make our experience of internet more relevant, useful, enjoyable (and profitable). The key shift is from information-centric to knowledge-centric patterns of computing and communication that will fuel billion-dollar technology markets and trillion-dollar economic expansions worldwide over the next decade.

For further information please visit www.semanticexchange.com

The Semantic Web from A to Z

May 15, 2008

FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia, USA
AMERSFOORT, The Netherlands

Aduna and Zepheira, LLC announced today that the Sesame RDF framework now supports the storage of RDF data in the Mulgara Semantic Store.

Aduna has released Sesame version 2.2 Beta1, which includes support for the Mulgara storage layer. Production releases are being finalized now and are expected later this summer.

Sesame is an Open Source Java framework for the storage, inferencing and querying of Resource Description Framework (RDF) data. The framework is extensible and configurable with respect to storage mechanisms, inferencers, RDF file formats, query result formats and query languages. Sesame supports the SPARQL RDF query language, which became a standard of the World Wide Web Consortium in January, 2008 and Aduna's own SeRQL query language. SeRQL provides advanced features not yet available in SPARQL. Sesame offers a JBDC-like user API, streamlined system APIs and a RESTful HTTP interface supporting the SPARQL Protocol for RDF.

Sesame version 2.1 added support for storing RDF data in relational databases. MySQL and PostgreSQL were supported in March, 2008. As of this release, Sesame also includes support for Mulgara, the most scalable of the native RDF data stores.

Mulgara is a native RDF database, written in Java and designed to scale to hundreds of millions of RDF statements. Current work on Mulgara aims to increase its storage capacity to hundreds of billions of RDF statements by June of 2009. Aduna and Zepheira backed the integration of Mulgara and Sesame to provide Sesame's users with a single API for RDF data, regardless of the amount of data involved.

"Sesame developers may now work with the same API to manage their RDF data, from small in-memory prototypes to the largest enterprise projects," said Arjohn Kampman, Sesame's lead developer at Aduna. Ralph Pere, Aduna CEO, said, "Aduna remains committed to providing Sesame developers with the widest range of scalability options."

David Wood, a Zepheira partner and Mulgara project member, said, "Zepheira is pleased to facilitate the integration of Mulgara and Sesame. We see tremendous value in the integration of the projects, their developers and their communities of users. Industry coalescence around the SPARQL query language, the SPARQL protocol and the SAIL API will ease the transition of legacy systems onto the Web of Data."

"The integration of Sesame and Mulgara has brought together two of the leading Open Source Semantic Web frameworks. The comprehensive set of APIs and standards from Sesame along with the scalability and speed of Mulgara gives developers a single port of call for Semantic Web projects of all levels. We have now combined the experience and skills of the developers from both projects, giving us much greater capacity for ongoing development than when our efforts were split between unrelated systems," said Paul Gearon, founder and leader of the Mulgara Project.

About Aduna

Aduna is a front-runner in developing technologies for extracting, mining and revealing semantics in information. Sesame provides a solid foundation across business lines, including: search, intelligence, eCommerce, advertising, data and application integration. Aduna is a privately owned company and active in the semantic web arena since 1997. Aduna's products are used and renowned by individuals and organizations around the world. Aduna powers the Semantic Web by providing best-of-breed solutions for storage, navigation and presentation of semantic data. The company is based in the Netherlands. Aduna means Semantic Power. For more information, visit: www.aduna-software.com.

About Zepheira

Zepheira is a US-based professional services firm with expertise in semantic technologies and Enterprise Data Integration. Zepheira delivers solutions worldwide to integrate, navigate and manage data across personal, group and enterprise boundaries. Zepheira performs business analysis, data architecture, application development and implementation. Zepheira's experts have a long history of leading Internet standards initiatives, and delivering solutions to industries including manufacturing, financial services, medical research and defense. The company is privately held and has offices in Virginia, Ohio and Colorado. For more information, visit: www.zepheira.com.

About Sesame

Sesame is an Open Source framework for the storage, inferencing and querying of Resource Description Framework (RDF) data. Sesame is an Aduna Open Source project. Commercial support for Sesame is available from www.aduna-software.com. For more information, visit: www.openrdf.org.

About Mulgara

The Mulgara Semantic Store is a scalable database for Semantic Web information. Mulgara natively stores Resource Description Framework (RDF) information, provides a powerful query capability and scales to enterprise levels. The project is Open Source Software and licensed under the Open Software License version 3.0. Mulgara is written entirely in the Java programming language. For more information, visit: www.mulgara.org.