DataSpaces, 2008-12

A monthly newsletter dedicated to the promotion of best practices and education in the data access and integration communities

Brought to you by the team at OpenLink Software

December 2008

Dear OpenLink Community,

Last month we launched the first edition of our monthly DataSpaces newsletter. This month, we've worked out some kinks and revamped the DataSpaces format. We hope our revisions enhance your experience.

November was a busy month at OpenLink Software.

We released Virtuoso Open Source Edition (VOS) 5.0.9, and introduced the Virtuoso Universal Server (Cloud Edition) for Amazon EC2. We also made it possible for you to instantiate your own DBpedia instance in the Cloud.

We have also collected pointers to a series of articles and resources that should help you resolve two of the more common issues users have encountered with our Universal Data Access products -- acquisition and deployment of licenses.

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News & Announcements

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Introducing Virtuoso Universal Server (Cloud Edition) for Amazon EC2

Virtuoso Universal Server (Cloud Edition) is a pre-installed edition of Virtuoso for Amazon's EC2 Cloud platform.

This packaging of our flagship Universal Server offers a boatload of features and benefits for Web entrepreneurs, DBAs, Systems Integrators, Developers, and anyone else ready to establish their presence on the Linked Data Web.

Full story...

Get Your Own DBpedia in the Clouds

Yes, you too can have your very own instance of DBpedia 3.2 in the Cloud, thanks to Virtuoso and EC2.

Simply instantiate your own Virtuoso EC2 AMI instance, install some special EC2 extensions (a few steps in the Conductor), and perform a "restore" from a backup of DBpedia in OpenLink's S3 bucket.

Voila! Your very own DBpedia in roughly one hour's time....

Full story...

VOS 5.0.9 Now Available

VOS 5.0.9 focuses on performance optimizations for the SQL engine, SPARQL engine and ODBC and JDBC drivers, and fixes to the OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS) application suite.

New features include:

• an Excel mime-type output option in the SPARQL endpoint;
• triple options bif:contains and transitivity;
• new RDF-generating cartridges for the Sponger;
• incorporation of UMBEL lookups into Sponger cartridges;
• support for very large HTTP client requests;
• a sparql-auth endpoint with digest authentication;
• initial support for the Ubiquity Firefox plugin.

There are also bug fixes to memory leaks, SPARQL 'SELECT DISTINCT' and various SQL query syntax handling; XHTML and JavaScript validation; and other UI fixes in the ODS application suite.

Full story...

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Developer Resources

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Here are some resources for developers looking to dialogue with other developers in the Virtuoso or Linked Data Sources communities:

Virtuoso Users List

All Virtuoso, all the time. Topics include discussion of DBpedia, SPARQL query syntax, bug reports, enhancement requests, etc.

You can subscribe through the list's home page or .

Linking-Open-Data Mailing List

Not specifically Virtuoso- or OpenLink-related, but with lots of obvious interesting crossover.

To subscribe, .

To post, (note -- this links to a different address!).

Web-based documentation of W3C-hosted mailing lists, including general (un)subscription instructions, is also available.

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Tech Tricks & Tips - UDA Licensing Edition

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OpenLink Support has assembled a few pointers to license-related resources into our complete Product Licensing Guide.

Workstation Model Vs. Application Server Model

OpenLink has two licensing models.

Workstation Model licenses apply to architectures where single-user client machines connect to a DBMS.

Application Server Model licenses apply to architectures where each client machine is capable of supporting the DBMS connectivity needs of multiple end users at any given time.

When is a Workstation Not a Workstation

Workstations host Desktop or Personal Editions of common end-user operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.

Machines hosting server editions of Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux are not considered to be Workstations, even if the hardware is identical. Machines hosting server edition operating systems are considered to be Application Servers.

Count Your Cores

Physical processor core counts factor into OpenLink licensing. Know ahead of time how many physical processor cores exist in any machine that will host an OpenLink license.

Don't Forget the OpenLink License Manager

Still experiencing "License expired" or "License not found" errors after installing a valid license file? Do not forget to restart the License Manager that ships with OpenLink 6.0 and newer drivers.

The License Manager needs to be restarted -- with the appropriate license variable set -- before a new license will be available for use.

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Administrivia

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We hope you enjoyed receiving this issue of DataSpaces. If you don't want to receive future editions of this newsletter, product announcements, or other news from OpenLink Software, please log in to our Web site and uncheck the "further information" box that appears on your User Details page.

Please do not reply directly to this e-mail. If you have any questions or comments regarding this newsletter, please contact us through our Web contact form.

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OpenLink Software, Inc.
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Suite 265
Burlington, MA 01803
+1-781-273-0900

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OpenLink Software, Inc.
Making Technology Work for You

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