Posts tagged RDF
Hybrid Ontology + Relational Store with SQL Server
May 25th
There are many references in the literature to exposing existing SQL data sources as RDF. This is certainly one way to integrate existing databases with semantic reasoning tools but it clearly requires a lot more storage and processing than simply keeping the data in SQL and querying over it directly. So recently I began some experiments to create a hybrid store by merging an ontology triple (quad) store with an existing database. By linking each row in other SQL tables to an Entity in the triple store I can take advantage of their existing columns, indexes, relationships etc. whilst also being able to reason over them. The first part of this is now working, Entities can be derived types stored in separate SQL tables linked only by an Id, and I am now moving on to getting the metadata in place that will provide all of the implied relationships that can be derived from an existing row-structured database into the ontology store – not as duplicated information but as a service that the reasoner will use to get statements about the SQL content. Clearly this will require changes in both the reasoner and the store but I think the net effect will be a much more efficient reasoner able to reason over large volumes of structured information quickly without having to first turn everything into a statement triple.
An ontology triple (quad) store for RDF/OWL using Entity Framework 4
May 12th
This weeks side-project was the creation of an ontology store using Entity Framework 4. An ontology store stores axioms consisting of Subject, Predicate, Object which are usually serialized as RDF, OWL, N3, … Whereas there’s lots of details about these serialization formats, the actual mechanics of how to store and manipulate them was somewhat harder to come by. Nevertheless, after much experimentation I came up with an Entity Model that can store Quads (Subject, Predicate, Object and Meta) or Quins (Subject, Predicate, Object, Meta, Graph). The addition of Meta allows one Axiom to reference another. The addition of Graph allows the store to be segmented making it easy to import some N3 or RDF into a graph, then flush that graph if it is no longer needed or if a newer version becomes available.
The store is currently hooked up to an Euler reasoner that can reason against it, lazily fetching just the necessary records from the SQL database that backs the Entity Model.
Here’s the EDMX showing how I modeled the Ontology Store:
