Bi-later integration are a short term approach to business integration, but only standards provide a long term solution. Unfortunately, agreeing on standards is hard and takes time, thus translation between standards is unavoidable. Embracing change is the only way to benefit from short term translation while developing over time comprehensive standards. Semantic technologies are design with flexibility in mind and, therefore, they can help in developing more comprehensive standards and easier to maintain translations.

1. Comitato Italo-Svizzero per la Geoinformatica
Semantic Technologies for
Data Integration and
Service Interoperability
Emanuele Della Valle
DEIB - Politecnico di Milano
http://emanueledellavalle.org
Como, 30-31.10.2014

2. Once upon a time …
…, in an happy organization, users
were happy of the application the IT
department prepared for them, but …
[…]
application
… the organization was not alone.
Another organization developed a
complementary application …
[…]
complementary application
… so, one day, the two organizations
decided to integrate the two
applications.
Organizational
boundaries
[…]
application
[…]
complementary application
Organizational
boundaries
[…]
application
?
Having much to gain the happy
organization decided to invest in a
bi-lateral solution
[…]
complementary application
Organizational
boundaries
[…]
application
adapter !
E. Della Valle

3. … and this went on for a while, but …
… the more bi-lateral integrations, the sadder the organizations became.
[…]
!
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
? ! ?
! ?
Legend
! OK
!! Good
!!! Very Good
!?! Very Good …
?!? Have I done the
right thing?
??? Does it make
sence?
?#@ Why am I
doying it!!!
E. Della Valle

4. … So, they standardized and …
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
… and they lived happily ever after!
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5. Well, not really :-( Actually …
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[…]
KEEP
CALM
AND
WAIT FOR
1 1 0 010 YEARS
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6. E.g., Open Geospatial Consortium
20 years of activity
more than 400 organizations
30 standards
Standard 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
GML
Geography
Markup
Language
v1.0
v2.0
v3.0
v3.1
v3.2.1
WFS
Web
Feature
Service
v1.0
V1.1
V2.0
WMS
Web
Map
Service
v1
v1.1
v1.1.1
v1.3
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7. Why? The Standardization dilemma!
Comprehensive
Handles all use cases
Good
High quality
Timely
Completed quickly
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8. Standards are like plumbs
There are a variety of them and …
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9. standards are like plumbs
… sometime the variety is required
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10. standards are like plumbs
… sometime it is an obstacle, thus …
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11. standards are like plumbs
… thus translation is needed
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12. Translation is
unavoidable!
100%
Comprehensive
0%
Time
Standard
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13. So What?!?
“It is not necessarily the
strongest of the species
that survives nor the
most intelligent, but
the one that is most
responsive to change.”
--- Charles Darwin
“The Origin of Species”
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14. Semantic Technologies embrace change
Proposing a simple data model: RDF
property
subject object
E.g.,
Italy Switzerland
Flexible enough to represent:
Tables
bordersOn
Trees Graphs
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15. Semantic Technologies embrace change
Providing a powerful query language: SPARQL
E.g., what does Italy border on?
bordersOn
Italian
border ?x
?x={Switzerland, Austria, Vatican, San Marino, France and Slovenia}
Flexible enough to query RDF data even without knowing the schema
E.g., can you describe Italy?
?p
Italy ?x
?p={bordersOn} ?x={Switzerland, Austria, Vatican, …}
?p={hasCapital} ?x={Rome}
?p={timeZone} ?x={UTC+1}
…
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16. Semantic Technologies embrace change
Providing a formal language for conceptual modelling: OWL
E.g., Corine Land Covers Types
Artificial areas
Inland Water
Semi-natural
Vegetation
OWL is a modular standard that offers different trade-offs
OWL-QL OWL-RL OWL-EL
Forest Land
Data Terms
Terms
Data
Data Terms
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17. Semantic Technologies embrace change
Ontology Based Data Access as a prototypical solution to interoperability
problems
Standard in OWL
Translator Translator Translator
[…]
<XML>
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18. Semantic Technologies embrace change
Ontology Based Data Access as a prototypical solution to interoperability
problems
SPARQL Queries
Standard in OWL
Translator Translator Translator
[…]
RDBMS <XML>
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19. Semantic Technologies embrace change
Ontology Based Data Access as a prototypical solution to interoperability
problems
Results
{ , , }
Standard in OWL
Translator Translator Translator
[…]
RDBMS <XML>
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20. Those ideas at work on scale
Google for "restaurants in nyc central park"
One model: Google knowledge graph
Little spatial reasoning
A variety of sources:
• thecentralparkboathouse.com
• viewmenu.com
• opentable.com
• plus.google.com
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21. Thank you!
Any Question?
Emanuele Della Valle
DEIB - Politecnico di Milano
http://emanueledellavalle.org