Linked Data Spaces & Data Portability
Kingsley Idehen

Orri Erling

OpenLink Software,
10 Mall Road,
Burlington, MA 01803, USA

OpenLink Software,
10 Mall Road,Burlington, MA 01803, USA

kidehen@openlinksw.com

oerling@openlinksw.com

ABSTRACTIn the year 2007, the size of the Linked Data injected into the Web
grew to several billion RDF triples, served by a network ofinterlinked data sources that cover domains such as generalknowledge, geographic information, people, companies, online
communities, films, music, books and scientific publications.
Unfortunately, the growth rate of User Generated content from avariety of Web based unstructured and semi-structured data-silos
continues to exceed that of structured Linked Data. Thus, we havea pressing need for technology, capable of bridging thisbroadening divide via transparent generation of Linked Data fromexisting data-silos on the Web. Our Linked Data technology
demonstration explores the use of the OpenLink Data Spaces
platform as a solution to this problem.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

To alleviate the imminent challenges of global information
overload, we need to unobtrusively construct a Web of interlinked
structured data from today’s data silos comprised of thefollowing:
••••
•
••

RDF based structured data
Standardized data serialization formats
HTTP based Unique Identifiers for all Data Items (webresources and abstract & concrete things)
HTTP based Data Set containers (Data Spaces)
Data Servers that provide data management and data
access services for one or more Data Spaces
Key infrastructure oriented shared ontologies
Query Language for interacting with structured data

We identify the items above, collectively, as critical componentsof Linked Data Spaces: points of presence on the Web that exposestructured data via HTTP based URIs.

H.3.2 [Information Storage]
H.3.3 [Information Search & Retrieval]General Terms
Management, Performance, Design, Standardization, Languages,Theory

Keywords
Linked Data, Semantic Web, SPARQL, Data Integration, Data
Spaces

1. INTRODUCTION
User generated content is growing at an exponential rate behind
corporate firewalls and across the Internet in general. The use ofWeb technologies has been the prime accelerator of theaforementioned growth due to the pervasiveness of Web based
distributed collaborative applications. Examples include: Social
Networking, Weblogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmark Managers, Photo
Sharing, Polls Management, Calendars, Discussion Forums, File
Sharing, and Feed Aggregation, to name a few.
The exponential growth of user-generated content has resulted in
the growth of silos comprised of unstructured and/or semistructured content. Unfortunately, these silos have accelerated,rather than decelerated, the imminence of an “informationoverload” quagmire.

During this demonstration / presentation session we are going
explore the creation of “Data Junction Boxes in the Clouds” via
OpenLink Data Spaces that exploits in-built RDFization
Middleware, plus the ability to mesh User Identity and User Data,en route to surmounting the issues and challenges associated with
Data Portability attainment.

2. Issues & Challenges
2.1 Data Portability
It’s no secret that data wants to be free of the tyranny ofapplication logic confinement. In recent times, the realization thatmeshing Identity and Data ownership on the Web are criticalrequirements of this pursuit of freedom, has resulted in theemergence of a movement for Data Portability as yet anotherenclave within the broader Open Data movement.
Data portability addresses to key issues: data mobility and datareferencing. Today, data mobility though the use of standard dataformats for moving data across silos (import and export style)have emerged as the focal point of attention with regards toaddressing the proliferation of data silos on the Web. Examples
include: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, OPML, FOAF, SIOC, andothers. Unfortunately, the ability to reference and de-reference
data across data-silos is yet to catch the attention of thosepursuing data portability.

2.2 RDFization Middleware
The traditional resistance to RDF adoption, which is critical toLinked Data comprehension and production, comes from thegrounding of the RDF Data Model in Graph Theory and theunwillingness of most Web Application developers to interact
with data formally. This reality has lead to a genre of middleware
tools collectively known as RDFizers, that generate RDF on thefly.

•Interaction with the resulting data graph via a number ofLinked Data aware User Agents

3. Identity & Data Meshing via Linked Data
SpacesWith regards, to Linked Data, generating RDF on-the-fly is only
part of the equation; the generated RDF must retain the core
principles of linked data by providing URIs for physical web
accessible resources, concrete entities, and abstract things. Ofcourse, this process must include intelligent production ofinstance data associated with relevant shared schemas or
ontologies.

2.3 Data Junction Boxes in the Clouds
It is our belief that the Linked Data Web will be more distributed
than centralized in architecture. We envisage a Linked Data Web
comprised of hubs that range is size from large (e.g. DBpedia,Geonames, Zitgist etc.), medium sized group (e.g. RDFizedWeblogs, Wikis, Bulletin Boards etc.), and smaller personal hubs
enabled by operating system virtualization technologies likeAmazon EC2. The medium and smaller hubs are best described asdata junction boxes because they act as conduits between existing
systems and Linked Data aware User Agents.
This demonstration will demonstrate a Data Space initialization
process for end-users that covers:••••

Domain Name Registration (e.g. .Name acquisition)
DNS configuration
Bonding with existing Web 2.0 platforms Facebook,
phpBB3, MediaWiki, Wordpress, Drupal, Del.icio.us,
Flickr, and Bugzilla
Production of a dereferencable URIs that exposed theresulting Data Graph

4. Links•••

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Dat
a_Spaces - OpenLink Data Spaces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Univ
ersal_Server - Virtuoso
http://myopenlink.net/ods/index.html - LiveOpenLink Data Spaces Demonstration