ING Semantic Infrastructure

Complete name of the project

Submitter information

Laurent Dubost, Thales Communications & Services, laurent DOT dubost AT thalesgroup DOT com

Project purpose and summarization

Project information

ING Semantic Infrastructure is a environment which enables the development and integration of applicative decision support components based on the semantic technology.
It is developed by Thales Communications & Security within the ISN department which is developing information systems in the field of intelligence and national security.

Description of the project and its goals

The aim of ING Semantic Infrastructure is to facilitate the development and integration of Decision Support and Visualization applicative components based on the semantic knowledge representation (based on semantic triples).
The ING Semantic Infrastructure is composed of the following components:
The ING Abstract Semantic Repository is an abstract layer which enables to address any repository (SQL DB, RDF repository…) as a semantic repository.
• ING Extensions offers common services dedicated to data exchanges (the “basket”), traceability, and generic interfaces to operational functionality such as similarity and data fusion. It also offers a SPARQL end-point.
• ING Graphic library contains a widget library and a library dedicated to the compatibility with the Weblab project,
• ING Connectors offers a connector to connect ING to memory storage. The connector to any repository offering a SPARQL end-point is in the roadmap.
• ING Basic applications: Entity editor, model editor, administration, the “basket” HMI, fusion HMI

See architecture diagram in attachments.

The major benefit provided by ING Semantic Infrastructure is to facilitate the development of applicative components based on semantic technology. ING proposes an architecture and the bricks for its implementation. Moreover, ING makes components independent from the repository actually used, and thus provides model adaptability to the components.
Additionally, ING introduces a specific meta-model, which differentiates operational links (which are shown to the users) from technical links (which are hidden to the users). It then brings the power of semantic representation into operational systems.

Targeted audience

The target audience is twofold:
• On the R&D side, we target the communities working on Semantics on one side, and on Decision Support on the other side. This target R&D community is external, and internal inside TCS.
• On the commercial side, ING Semantic Infrastructure might find some exploitation in the short term, by becoming of the building block a THALES “PMS” (Primary Modular Solution) in the security domain.

Supporting team

Our core developer team is currently composed of 2 main members: Bruno Quéré,-Jean-Michel Garcia, Thales Communications & Security.
The project is partially financed by the VIRTUOSO FP7 project and partially by TCS.

Business model

Internally, the business model of ING Semantic Infrastructure is to sell support on ING and the integration of components.
R&D prototype and demonstrator development within the Thales R&D community.
Because of its SOA philosophy, ING Semantic Infrastructure, can indirectly contribute to the competivity of TCS by enabling the development within collaborative projects in the field of decision support components which may later on become individual commercial components, of TCS system solutions.

User community

Our user community currently includes VIRTUOSO (http://www.virtuoso.eu/) project partners (technology providers) and all end-user organisations involved in the VIRTUOSO project.
This community will continue to be built though the collaborative projects using ING.
The growth of the TCS community.

Internationalization

The documentation of our project is in English.
The source code is in English and the associated Javadoc is mostly written in English (90%). The remaining 10% are in French and will be translated to English before April 2013.
The HMI is available in English and French.
All the documentation of our project (software documentation) as well as our mailing lists are already in French and English.

Roadmap

The roadmap for the next year is:
Development on the connector to any repository which offers a SPARQL endpoint.
The publication of some “basic editor” is also in the roadmap. This requires improvement of the following editors:
• Entity editor,
• Model editor,
• Administration.
The generic similarity interface provided by the extensions will evolve to include sub-graph similarity services.
Future work may provide:
• the ability to provide in the “basket” extension, the ability to replay the logged operations. This might develop as far as providing the ability to schedule operations provided by Decision Support components.
• semantic assistance to the users for the import (and mapping) of heterogeneous data.

Hosting

No.

Your project and OW2

ING Semantic Infrastructure does not use OW2 components yet.
This might be considered in the roadmap of ING.

OW2 components

ING Semantic Infrastructure does not use OW2 components yet.
This might be considered in the roadmap of ING.

Synergies

ING Semantic Infrastructure does not use OW2 components yet.
This might be considered in the roadmap of ING.

Interested parties

TBD

Technologies and standards

The ING Semantic Infrastructure project is developed with the Java J2E technology. The current application server we use is JBoss. A migration to the OW2 JONAS application server will be considered.
The HMI is based on the AJAX technology (we use GWT, and Smart GWT).
We follow the semantic standards: RDF and SPARQL.
We use the MAVEN build manager and generate Maven artifacts.

Contribution to the OW2 Community

The ING Semantic Infrastructure project is already connected to the WEBLAB OW2 project through the VIRTUOSO FP7 project where they share a common vision and approach on Decision Support.
Both projects may contribute to a possible future OW2 initiative on Decision Support.

Motivations to join the consortium and its community

OW2 a recognized community which shall contribute to give ING Semantic Infrastructure the visibility it needs to reach its target community.
Moreover, the WEBLAB being released in the OW2 community, it seems to us that releasing ING in the same ecosystem will contribute to develop the synergies between these two projects.