Facilitating collaboration and interaction across the enterprise with OSLC

Linked data principles (http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html) are the foundation of the emerging Semantic Web (http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/), sometimes called Web 3.0. By leveraging standards such as RDF (Resource Description Framework, http://www.w3.org/RDF/), and SPARQL (SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language, http://www.w3.org/standards/techs/sparql#w3c_all) HTTP developers are creating web applications that can intelligently interact with multiple data sources to provide richer, faster, and more accurate understandings of the world represented by our ever-growing data. The "Web of data" created and used by these applications, is poised to transform business and society just as the original "Web of documents" of the World Wide Web has over the past twenty years. One of the prominent applications of linked data principles is OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration, http://open-services.net and http://oasis-oslc.org), a set of specifications for application integration. OSLC exploits the usefulness of the read-write capabilities of HTTP when applied to a "Web of data" to make integration easy, "connect disjointed workflows, minimize frustration, and save time and money." Dozens of OSLC-enabled applications exist (http://open-services.net/software/), and dozens of organizations, including vendors such as Fujitsu, IBM, Red Hat, and Software AG; end users such as Bank of America, Boeing, EADS, Ericsson, JPMorgan Chase; and researchers from KTH (Swedish Royal Institute of Technology) and UPM (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid); are committed to its success (http://oasis-oslc.org/supporters). To help ensure the broadest adoption of OSLC, in May 2013 twenty-two organizations, including those mentioned above, co-founded a Member Section at the OASIS standards group (http://oasis-open.org). While OSLC got its start focusing on the integration of ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) tools, it is already being used to simplify integration of systems engineering tools, systems monitoring tools, and even management of cloud infrastructure. OSLC provides a generally applicable approach to integration that can be applied to any domain. Presently, there are finalized OSLC specifications for sharing data from a diverse set of domains, including: Architecture Management, Asset Management, Automation, Change Management, Performance Monitoring, Quality Management, Reconciliation, and Requirements Management (http://open-services.net/specifications/). There is ongoing work to expand the scenarios covered by the specifications for these domains, as well as to standardize integration in new areas such as Configuration Management, Embedded Systems, Mobile, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), and Reporting (http://open-services.net/workgroups/). The foundation for all these OSLC "domain specifications" is the the OSLC Core specification. The OSLC Core V2 specification defines which technologies to use, and how to use them, to achieve application integration with linked data. It also provides mechanisms for service discovery, UI delegation from a service provider by its consumers, a simplified query syntax, and more. In May 2012, a major portion of the OSLC Core V2 spec was accepted as the seed document (http://www.w3.org/Submission/2012/02/) for the new W3C Linked Data Platform (LDP) Working Group (http://www.w3.org/2012/ldp/wiki/Main_Page). Co-submitters of that seed document included EMC, IBM, Oracle, and Red Hat. Currently there are 47 participants from 29 organizations and 1 invited expert participating in the LDP WG (http://www.w3.org/2000/09/dbwg/details?group=55082&public=1), and the W3C LDP 1.0 specification is in the Last Call Working Draft state (http://www.w3.org/TR/ldp/). The OSLC Core V3 specification is using W3C LDP 1.0. as its base and will be contributed to OASIS as the seed document for the OASIS OSLC Core Technical Committee. Over time all OSLC domain specifications will follow OSLC Core to the OASIS standardization track. The original OSLC community website (http://open-services.net) will continue to be the place for learning about OSLC (through resources, blogs, forums, ...) and to collaborate on new scenarios (which serve as inputs to future OSLC specifications and/or new versions or existing specs). While standards play a key role in reducing the costs of software and ensuring interoperability, they only of a most limited value until they're implemented, and the more they're implemented, the more valuable they become. Recognizing this, the OSLC community does several things to help encourage and facilitate implementations: Firstly, the specifications themselves are scenario-driven and minimalistic. This ensures that implementers of the specifications can provide useful and valuable functionality with the least possible effort. It is not uncommon for implementers to have a working prototype in a day and a beta-level implementation in a few weeks. Secondly, the community has created an open source SDK for OSLC Development. These resources include libraries for creating providers and consumers of the OSLC domain specifications, test suites for validating provider implementations, reference implementations of providers of the OSLC domain specifications, sample code, and examples. The hand-on portion of this workshop is also available through the Eclipse Lyo project (uhttp://eclipse.org/lyo), which is where most of the OSLC developer resources are hosted (resources for .NET developers can be found in the OSLC4Net CodePlex project (http://oslc4net.codeplex.com). Thirdly, the OSLC community website (http://open-services.net) provides many resources to help developers learn about OSLC, and to convince them of the benefits of supporting it (http://open-services.net/resources/). In this session we will provide a hands-on introduction to Linked Data and OSLC. Starting with Tim Berners-Lee's four principles of linked data: 1) Use URIs as names for things, 2) Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names, 3) When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF*, SPARQL), and 4) Include links to other URIs. so that they can discover more things; We will explore how these principles can be used to facilitate ALM integration. We will take a look at what OSLC Core provides, some scenarios that are enabled by OSLC domain specifications, and what's new in the version 3 specifications. We will also take a look ahead to what may be next for linked data and OSLC, both in terms of innovations and implementations. All of this learning will be reinforced by hands-on activities in which participants will access and experiment with resources from the Eclipse Lyo project, as well as OSLC-enable the open source Bugzilla bug tracker. By the end of the workshop participants will have an understanding of linked data and OSLC, experience implementing an OSLC adapter for Bugzilla, and a familiarity with the OSLC community so that they can continue their learning and participate if they choose. Whether you're responsible for software delivery, cloud management, data integration and analytics, or business process implementation, linked data and OSLC are relevant and ascendant technologies that you can leverage to improve your outcomes.