MaSI3: A Massively Scalable Intelligent Information Infrastructure

Ontology-based Data Management Systems (ODMSs) are a new kind of data management systems specifically designed to manage large semi-structured data sets needed to power modern intelligent applications. Most ODMSs are based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF) data model, which was specifically designed for the representation of semi-structured data. RDF data sets consist of triples, and RDF data sets are often seen as graphs with labelled vertices and edges. The structure of RDF data is described using an ontology - a set of logical axioms that give semantics to the graph, and enable the derivation of new triples via reasoning. The ontology is often expressed in the Web Ontology Language (OWL), sometimes extended with the Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). The main task of an ODMS is to answer queries over the given ontology and data set, with the queries commonly being expressed in the SPARQL language. Reasoning plays a key role in query answering, and modern intelligent applications commonly require an integration of taxonomic, spatio-temporal, mereological, and other kinds of reasoning.

ODMSs can and do exploit implementation techniques described in the database literature. The computational problems that such systems need to solve, however, are very hard, so developing robustly scalable systems is extremely challenging, usually requiring a combination heuristics and careful engineering. Although significant progress has been made and state of the art ODMSs can now deal with nontrivial data sets, their performance still falls far short of what is required by modern `data hungry' applications. This is partly due to the sheer size of the data sets that need to be processed, but also partly due to the complexity of the reasoning tasks that need to be performed.

Critical to the performance of ODMSs is the fact that the units of data that they store (i.e., triples) are very small so, to retrieve useful information, typical queries tend to be quite large. Efficiently answering such queries requires exhaustive data indexing; however, building and maintaining these indices can itself compromise scalability, particularly during update-intensive tasks such as materialisation-based reasoning. Moreover, although query evaluation is subpolynomial in data size, it is NP-hard in query size, so techniques that are effective on small queries may fail on large and complex queries. Finally, scaling ODMSs to deal with Big Data will inevitably require distributed data storage and query processing, but existing data partitioning schemes are unlikely to fully exploit the potential for parallelisation and minimise distributed processing on large queries.

Due to these issues, be believe that the robust scalability required by modern ODMS applications can only be achieved through the principled application of techniques that provide provable performance and/or tractability guarantees. The use of such techniques will not only allow for better and more consistent performance, but will also help ODMS users to better understand and thus avoid performance bottlenecks. We plan to develop the relevant techniques by synthesising and extending the results from three distinct research fields: databases, knowledge representation, and mathematical network theory. Combining these techniques with insightful engineering and extensive optimisation will, we believe, allow us to implement a new ODMS with
scalability surpassing that of existing systems by several orders of magnitude. Finally, we will exploit our contacts with industry (see enclosed Letters of Support) to evaluate and tune our ODMS in real-world settings. We will thus lay both the theoretical and the practical foundations for a massively scalable intelligent information infrastructure capable of powering modern data-intensive applications.

* Academic Impact

We believe that the techniques developed in this project will exert a major influence on the theory and practice of data management and reasoning in several academic communities. As explained in the Case for Support and in line with EPSRC's `Working Together' priority, addressing the technical challenges inherent in intelligent management of large volumes of data requires a collaboration with researchers within and outside ICT. Within ICT, we expect a strong cross-fertilisation of ideas between the knowledge representation and reasoning community on the one side, and the database community on the other side. Outside ICT, solving the problems related to data partitioning will require a collaboration with researchers in the mathematical network theory. Through these collaborations, this project has the potential to shape the research agenda in knowledge representation and reasoning, databases, and mathematics, contributing new ideas and uncovering challenges for future work. This will contribute to expanding the UK's research base, and to a consolidation of the UK's established world leadership in the mentioned research areas.

* Commercial Impact

Various companies have already recognised ODMSs as a great commercial opportunity. For example, numerous start-ups and small companies in the UK, the EU, and the USA (such as Garlik, ExperienceOn, ontoprise, OpenLink, Clark&Parsia, OntoText, Metaweb, and fluidOps) are currently developing ODMS variants. Well-known providers of data management infrastructure have also recognised the need to support RDF and OWL; for example, Oracle has recently enhanced its well-known database management system with modules that use ontologies to support `semantic data management'. Although companies such as Oracle see a big market in the application of ontology-based technologies, their existing systems suffer from numerous limitations. Thus, addressing the scalability problems outlined in this proposal would have a significant impact on the business of these companies.

* Dissemination and Engagement

We will undertake a range of activities in order to ensure the widest possible dissemination of our results and engagement with anticipated beneficiaries.

First, we will continue our established pattern of publishing our research in international journals and conferences. Our publications have appeared in top journals such as JACM, AI, JAIR, JWS, VLDB Journal, and Information & Computation, as well as leading conferences such as IJCAI, KR, the ISWC, and IJCAR.

Second, we will continue our participation in relevant international coordination and standardisation efforts within groups and organisations such as the World Wide Web consortium and the OWL Experiences and Directions Group. Through these activities we can foster awareness of our work and ensure that it has the maximum possible impact on any future standards. For example, the W3C's OWL 2 ontology language standard is based on our work on description logics.

Third, we will continue our collaboration with the developers of ontology-based systems and applications in both academia and industry, including, for example, BAE Systems, ExperienceOn, and Samsung (see Letters of Support). As well as providing a channel for dissemination, our industry contacts will provide excellent opportunities for commercialising the results of this project.

Fourth, we will make all project outputs available from the project web site, including papers, presentations, tutorials, and software.