Mark Diggory wrote: > Hello Simile, > > I'm hunting for any resources on SPARQL/RDF driven reporting > engines. We're reviewing possible solutions for reporting on top of > [EMAIL PROTECTED] and given we're very bent on getting RDF usage more main- > stream, we are interested in something that would be very flexible > and allow various sources to Query and return result sets that can be > processed in something like JSP/Velocity/Java/Whatever to produce > canned reports we design against the following types of Data sources. > > Apache/Log4j Logs > DSpace Relation Databases (Postgresql) > DSpace Object Model (Java) > Metadata, Policy and History RDF triple-stores (Sesame/Java/SPARQL/ > Longwell) > > I've been exploring some of the Simile tools, especially "Referee", > with the inital interest of getting Apache Log data into a triple- > store and available for generating reports against.
That's not what Referee is about, btw. Referee is not a way to transform apache logs into RDF, but it's a way to mine referrer logs out of apache logs and find out who links to you and provide a little metadata about that. *that* metadata is then dumped out as RDF, not the logs. > While tools for > processing Apache logs and gathering statistics do exist, it might be > of greater interest to get such data into a common reporting > framework with other data sources. My initial ideas were originally > based on Relational tools like Crystal Reports/Jasper Reports. I'm > seeking any information on hybrid/common solutions that might span > sources of various format/protocol and one platform of interest to me > at the moment is BIRT: > > http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/intro/ > > The logic being that RDF/SPARQL data-sources could be created/adapted > to the framework which already has its own report generation tooling. > One could go directly from Apache Logs into BIRT, but that would be > much less RDF centric and we would still need to explore access to > our triple-stores used in our Policy and History subsystems. > > Any recommendations or suggestions would be received with much > gratitude. Without knowing what your reporting requirements are, there is no much I can recommend. Even the definition of reporting is a little fuzzy, I'm afraid. I've seen BIRT, which seems to me one of those things that appeal to management more than to developers, as I never understood, really, the different between a web report and a web age generated out of one or more database queries... I guess reporting tools appeal to those who can't create a database-driven web page on their own. Sure, there is a big difference in that reports run very different queries than OLTP-like queries (more data warehouse style) and, sure, there are specialized databases that run those queries much faster than regular RDBMSs, and sure, one might want to use RDF as the common data model to unify everything onto that (several companies are starting in this read-most database niche and are thinking of RDF as one scenario of use) But really, what is a reporting engine for you? Nothing prevents you, right now, to take your data, RDFize-it, dump it into a triple store of your choice and then run sparql queries on top, obtain an XML representation and XSLT transform it to anything you want. Since I doubt your reports need to be 'fast' in being generated, this can work just fine for you and can well integrate into dspace's future cocoon-based XML pipelined frontend. But if what you're looking for is an IDE to graphically construct your sparql query, or a visual drag/drop interface to construct your report as a portal output, no, I haven't seen anything like that nor I would hold my breath for it. As for how much work it would be to make BIRT RDF compatible, I have no idea. Hope this helps. -- Stefano Mazzocchi Digital Libraries Research Group Research Scientist Massachusetts Institute of Technology E25-131, 77 Massachusetts Ave skype: stefanomazzocchi Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA email: stefanom at mit . edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/general
