The Rise of the Semantic Enterprise: Exploiting Semantic Web 3.0 Technologies within Today's Enterprise

Leader: Mitchell Ummel, Cutter Consortium

The Internet is undergoing a rapid transformation from a web of hyperlinked documents to a web of semantically-linked data. This marks a movement beyond Web 2.0 to the Semantic Web 3.0. Closely trailing the Semantic Web 3.0 is the Semantic Enterprise.

The Semantic Web, according to the W3C website is a web of data:

There is lots of data we all use every day, and it is not part of the web. I can see my bank statements on the web, and my photographs, and I can see my appointments in a calendar. But can I see my photos in a calendar to see what I was doing when I took them? Can I see bank statement lines in a calendar?

Why not? Because we don't have a web of data. Because data is controlled by applications, and each application keeps it to itself.

The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources, where on the original Web mainly concentrated on the interchange of documents. It is also about language for recording how the data relates to real world objects. That allows a person, or a machine, to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing.

The Semantic Web offers a compelling architectural framework upon which to build next-generation, Internet-ready applications within the enterprise. The possibilities it presents are endless.

Is your organization ready to take advantage of Semantic Web 3.0-based technologies for enterprise applications and become a Semantic Enterprise? In this full-day workshop, Cutter Senior Consultant Mitchell Ummel will explore specific initiatives and measures that forward-thinking CIOs and Enterprise Architects should be undertaking today to benefit from the opportunities the Semantic Enterprise presents.

Mitchell Ummel will help you understand the revolutionary mindshift that's necessary in your approach to enterprise architecture. He'll help you rethink the traditional notions of how business, data/information, application, and technology architectures are conceptualized and realized within an enterprise.

In addition to benefits of and strategy for moving towards becoming a Semantic Enterprise, he will discuss the W3C-endorsed technologies and the defining architecture frameworks, Semantic Enterprise Architecture, that enable an organization to implement semantic enterprise applications. These technologies include, but are not limited to RDF and its variants, OWL, and SPARQL.

Among the topics that will be explored in this full-day workshop include:

• How your company can best utilize Semantic Web 3.0-based technologies for applications within the enterprise right now
• Which Semantic Enterprise applications which are seen as having highest and most compelling business value?
• What challenges and barriers hinder the Semantic Enterprise today? Security, privacy, data ownership/governance and more
• How will embracing Semantic Web 3.0-based technologies change your approach to Enterprise Architecture - business, data/information, application, and technology architectures?
• Will the massive "fact stores" of the Semantic Enterprise replace your traditional Decision Support Systems? What will the impact be?
• How will your approach to traditional relational or object data modeling, Master Data Management (MDM), and overall information architectures need to evolve in the Semantic Enterprise?

As a result of the insight you glean from this workshop, your team will be poised to pursue the semantic enterprise vision and be prepared to:

• Build general awareness and understanding across the enterprise for the practical application of an SEA roadmap.
• Understand the investment in training and skills development necessary to leverage Semantic Web technologies in your environment.
• Develop potential use cases for Semantically-aware applications (SAAs), based on your own organization's strategic business and technology opportunity areas.
• Begin thinking about your data/information architecture in terms of ontological engineering in order to semantically link to existing or emerging domain or industry ontologies.

Course Outline:

Primer and Introduction to Semantic Web 3.0, Ontological Engineering (OE), and Linked Open Data (LOD)

• History, definitions, terms, and core defining principles

Exploring the Business Case for the Semantic Enterprise

• Opportunities, costs, benefits, risks

Semantic Enterprise Architecture (SEA)

• Introduction, core defining principles, and compare/contrast traditional ea frameworks and methodologies

Case Study: Semantic Widgets, Inc. (a fictitous Semantic Enterprise)

• Exercises, team breakout sessions, presentations, and group discussion