We continue our discussion from yesterday of what enterprise IT will learn to love about semantic technologies at the upcoming SemTechBiz conference (the story began here):

Another Score For Data Agility

Looked at from the data warehouse point of view by Thomas Kelly, Practice Director, Enterprise Information Management, for Cognizant Technology Solutions, semantic technology makes it possible to apply Agile development practices to the data warehouse itself. “You can start modeling, work with data, generate analytics and then start tuning based on what you learn,” says Kelly, who will be discussing semantic technology for the data warehousing practitioner at this session. Several semantic technology-based practices can be applied that support iterative, evolutionary improvements with little or no impact to data loading and analytics functions that were built before the refinements were made, he says.

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Why should enterprise IT leaders start steeping themselves in semantic technologies? The answer to that question will become apparent to anyone attending the June Semantic Technology & Business conference in San Francisco, where many sessions will explore the value CIOs and their staffs can gain from going semantic. (You can register for SemTechBiz here.)

Let’s start with the problem of forcing enterprise knowledge workers into rigid procedures to accomplish their activities, the result of having to adhere to flow-charted business processes whose silo’d components are pieced together via fixed integration points. Dave Duggal, co-founder and managing director of EnterpriseWeb LLC, will paint a picture at this session instead of a world of smart, connected business processes to stand up a team of empowered and interactive knowledge workers. Once accorded certain rules-enabled permissions and information access rights, those employees can put their smarts to work “to do their jobs in a goal-oriented way to meet the objectives of the organization,” as Duggal explains it.

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We caught up with Bernie Spang, IBM’s Director, Strategy and Marketing, Database Software and Systems, to discuss the latest release of its enterprise data products DB2 and InfoSphere. Version 10 of both products have just been released. DB2 is used by thousands of organizations worldwide and comes in flavors ranging from a free version that maxes out at 2GB storage to systems that support large enterprises (Coca-Cola was an early adopter of DB2 version 10, and is already reporting cost-savings of over $1 Million).

The latest version of DB2 is the first in four years and represents a significant release, according to Spang, “This is a culmination of four years of effort by hundreds of engineers in IBM Research and Software Development Labs around the world; we also had more than 100 clients and over 200 business partners involved in the ‘early access program’ to help deliver this software. With the fundamental goal of delivering faster, easier, lower-cost data management.”

The early testing is showing positive results, with customers reporting “up to 10x faster data warehouse queries; freeing up to 90% of storage space using compression; and 98% code compatibility with Oracle Database, which makes it easier to migrate from Oracle to IBM software without changing data or retraining staff.”

For our readers, though, one of the more intriguing new features of DB2 is its built-in support for RDF. While semantics is not new to IBM — IBM Watson has gained particular fame — the appearance of RDF support in such a widely used, stable, enterprise database system is exciting.
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Smartlogic recently released a new version of its Semaphore software, which took home the 2011 European Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation Award. Version 3.3 adds new semantically-rich features, but the company itself has been shifting its strategy to talk about its solution less as the enterprise semantic platform and more as a content intelligence platform for identifying, classifying, extracting, analyzing and utilizing hard-to-find information from among unstructured assets in existing information management systems like Microsoft SharePoint.

Why? According to marketing VP Maya Natarajan, it’s an in to better customer access. “Whenever you think of the word semantic, there’s such a small percentage of the population that understands what it is,” she says. “But amazingly the uptake for content intelligence is so great. People immediately understand that so much quicker” — that is, she says, that content intelligence describes all the business reasons and benefits for deploying an enterprise semantic platform.

Another way to make the virtues of content intelligence even more obvious: Smartlogic is planning to introduce prebuilt starter taxonomies to kickstart the process in some vertical sectors. Meanwhile, Version 3.3 has brought to its customers features that still proclaim its semantic heritage, including a semantic visualization tool.

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Cambridge Semantics is flourishing. The company recently announced “that due to demand for its enterprise semantic data management offering, the company has increased headcount by 30 percent and has relocated to new office space on the Boston Common. In the heart of downtown Boston, the new 5,500 square foot office will provide the organization with room to grow as they focus on R&D and marketing activities for the company’s flagship Anzo software suite.” Read more

If you missed this excellent live webcast with Evren Sirin, CTO, Clark & Parsia, the recorded webcast is now available.  You also can meet Evren in Washington DC, November 29-December 1, 2011 for SemTechBiz DC. The customer mentioned in this case study, JP Morgan Chase, will be co-presenting and discussing how they are implementing Access Control using Semantic Technologies.

DESCRIPTION

Access control is an essential part of nearly every IT system; Read more

In advance of his appearance at the Semantic Technology & Business Conference in Washington DC (November 29-December 1, 2011), Evren Sirin, CTO of Clark & Parsia, LLC, will conduct a Webcast on the topic of Using Semantic Technologies for Enterprise Policy Management.

All attendees of the webcast will be entered to win a Free Registration to SemTechBiz DC!*

WEBCAST DETAILS

• Wednesday, November 16, 2011
• 2:00 pm EST (US)

DESCRIPTION

Access control is an essential part of nearly every IT system; especially in domains dealing with sensitive information such as financial accounts, personal health records, etc.
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Lee Feigenbaum’s latest article shares insights into how the Semantic Web is letting us do more than ever before, and do it faster. He writes, “The bottom line is this: The Semantic Web lets you do things fast. And because you can do things fast, you can do lots more things than you could before. You can afford to do things that fail (fail fast); you can afford to do things that are unproven and speculative (exploratory analysis); you can afford to do things that are only relevant this week or today (on-demand or situational applications); and you can afford to do things that change rapidly.” Read more

A recent article reminds businesses that the semantic web is here and asks what they’re going to do about it. The article states, “Web 3.0 has enabled people and machines to connect, evolve, share and use knowledge. Looking even further ahead, with Web 4.0 wherein we have a self-learning intelligence, the distinctive advantage will come from the combination of semantic technologies, like text analytics, along with other analytical models that extend semantic interoperability. In other words, having feedback loops for improving models – utilizing both semantic representations along with those from areas such as data mining, forecasting, optimization, simulations, and alike. Using these technologies, organizations will create that higher-order learning that did not exist using any one of those methods in isolation.” Read more

[Editor's Note: This week, we welcome Yefim "Jeff" Zhuk of Sallie Mae as he presents a series on Knowledge-Driven Architecture. This series follows up the author’s presentation at the recent international 2011 Semantic Technology Conference San Francisco and further expands on the subject of integrated software and knowledge engineering, originally described by Mr. Zhuk in the book “Integration-ready Architecture and Design.” Part I | Part II | Part III]

Part IV – Creating a semantically rich service environment locally and across industry

Part III focused on the Conversational Semantic Decision Support (CSDS) and related Use Cases.

This example can be expanded from requirements to design and development phases, including hints on service names and application messages. Standards, recommendations and best practices offered by W3C [6] can serve as the base for conversational scripts, which would help a SME, (in this case, a software developer) to successfully implement them and create a truly semantically rich SOA environment.
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