RDF Suite
RDF Suite is a set of high-level and scalable services enabling the realization of the full potential of the Semantic Web.
Description of the tool
In the next evolutionary step of the Web, termed the Semantic Web, vast amounts of information resources (i.e., data, documents, programs) will be made available along with various kinds of descriptive information, i.e., metadata. Better knowledge about the meaning, usage, accessibility or quality and validity of web resources will considerably facilitate automated processing of available web content/services. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) enables the creation and exchange of resource metadata as any other web data. To interpret metadata within or across user communities, RDF allows the definition of appropriate schema vocabularies (using RDFS).
Managing voluminous RDF description bases and schemas with existing low-level APIs and file-based implementations does not ensure fast deployment and easy maintenance of real-scale Semantic Web applications such as Knowledge Portals and E-Marketplaces. Still, we want to benefit from database technology in order to support declarative access and logical and physical RDF data independence. In this way, Semantic Web applications have to be specified in a high-level language only which resources need to be accessed, leaving the task of determining how to efficiently store or access their descriptions to the underlying RDF Store.
Prospective users
The RDF Suite is used by academics and software developers to produce scalable applications that rely on validating RDF/S compatible data for the Semantic Web.
The tool and knowledge creation
RDF Suite supports the storage, query and update of semantic conceptualizations and thus can be used in order to store and better track and understand changes and evolution in the way users create and understand knowledge.
Knowledge protection
RDF Suite is Open Source/ Free Software, and GPL compatible. See the RDFSuite license for details. Note that, as this license is GPL compatible, it is possible to redistribute software based on RDFSuite sources under a GPL license.
Contact details
Vassilis Christophides: christop@ics.forth.gr
