Members of the W3C Semantic Web in Health Care and Life Sciences
Interest Group (HCLS) have released a First Working Draft for a "HCLS
Knowledgebase" specification. This document is one of two initial WDs.
The HCLS Knowledgebase (HCLS-KB) is a biomedical knowledge base that
integrates 15 distinct data sources using currently available Semantic
Web Technologies such as the W3C standard Web Ontology Language (OWL)
and Resource Description Framework (RDF). This report outlines which
resources were integrated, how the KB was constructed using freely
available triple store technology, how it can be queried using the W3C
Recommended RDF query language SPARQL, and what resources and inferences
are involved in answering complex queries. While the utility of the KB
is illustrated by identifying a set of genes involved in Alzheimer's
Disease, the approach described here can be applied to any use case
that integrates data from multiple domains. A second document
"Experiences with the Conversion of SenseLab databases to RDF/OWL"
shares implementation experience of the Yale Center for Medical
Informatics: "One of the challenges facing Semantic Web for Health
Care and Life Sciences is that of converting relational databases
into Semantic Web format. The issues and the steps involved in such
a conversion have not been well documented. To this end, we have
created this document to describe the process of converting SenseLab
databases into OWL. SenseLab is a collection of relational (Oracle)
databases for neuroscientific research. The conversion of these
databases into RDF/OWL format is an important step towards realizing
the benefits of Semantic Web in integrative neuroscience research.
This document describes how we represented some of the SenseLab
databases in Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology
Language (OWL), and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of
these representations. Our OWL representation is based on the reuse
of existing standard OWL ontologies developed in the biomedical
ontology communities." The mission of the W3C Health Care and Life
Sciences (HCLS) Interest Group is to show how to use Semantic Web
technology to answer cross-disciplinary questions in life science that
have, until now, been prohibitively difficult to research. The
success of the group continues to draw industry interest. W3C Members
are currently reviewing a draft charter that would enable the renewed
HCLS Interest Group to develop and support use cases that have clear
scientific, business and/or technical value, using Semantic Web
technologies in three areas: life science, translational medicine,
and health care. W3C invites Members to review the draft charter
(which is public during the review), and encourages those who are
interested in using the Semantic Web to solve knowledge representation
and integration on a large scale to join the Interest Group.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
DMTF SM CLP Specification Adopted as an ANSI INCITS Standard
The Distributed Management Task Force announced a major technology
milestone in achieving "National Recognition with a Newly Approved ANSI
Standard." Its Server Management Command Line Protocol (SM CLP)
specification, a key component of DMTF's Systems Management Architecture
for Server Hardware (SMASH) initiative, has been approved as an American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) InterNational Committee for
Information Technology Standards (INCITS) standard. DMTF will continue
to work with INCITS to submit the new ANSI standard to the International
Standards Organization/ International Electrotechnical Commission
(ISO/IEC) Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) for approval as an
international standard. The INCITS Executive Board recently approved the
SM CLP standard, which has been designated ANSI INCITS 438-2008. INCITS
is accredited by ANSI, the organization that oversees the development of
American National Standards by accrediting the procedures of
standards-developing organizations, such as INCITS. SM CLP (DSP0214) is
a part of DMTF's SMASH initiative, which is a suite of specifications
that deliver architectural semantics, industry standard protocols and
profiles to unify the management of the data center. The SM CLP standard
was driven by a market requirement for a common command language to
manage a heterogeneous server environment. Platform vendors provide tools
and commands in order to perform systems management on their servers.
SM CLP unifies management of multi-vendor servers by providing a common
command language for key server management tasks. The spec also enables
common scripting and automation using a variety of tools. The SM CLP spec
allows management solution vendors to deliver many benefits to IT
customers. The spec enables data center administrators to securely manage
their heterogeneous server environments using a command line protocol
and a common set of commands. SM CLP also enables the development of
common scripts to increase data center automation, which can help
significantly reduce management costs... The CLP is defined as a
character-based message protocol and not as an interface, in a fashion
similar to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (RFC 2821). The CLP is a
command/response protocol, which means that a text command message is
transmitted from the Client over the transport protocol to the
Manageability Access Point (MAP). The MAP receives the command and
processes it. A text response message is then transmitted from the MAP
back to the Client... The CLP supports generating XML output data
(Extensible Markup Language, Third edition), as well as keyword mode
and modes for plain text output. XML was chosen as a supported output
format due to its acceptance in the industry, establishment as a
standard, and the need for Clients to import data obtained through the
CLP into other applications.
milestone in achieving "National Recognition with a Newly Approved ANSI
Standard." Its Server Management Command Line Protocol (SM CLP)
specification, a key component of DMTF's Systems Management Architecture
for Server Hardware (SMASH) initiative, has been approved as an American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) InterNational Committee for
Information Technology Standards (INCITS) standard. DMTF will continue
to work with INCITS to submit the new ANSI standard to the International
Standards Organization/ International Electrotechnical Commission
(ISO/IEC) Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) for approval as an
international standard. The INCITS Executive Board recently approved the
SM CLP standard, which has been designated ANSI INCITS 438-2008. INCITS
is accredited by ANSI, the organization that oversees the development of
American National Standards by accrediting the procedures of
standards-developing organizations, such as INCITS. SM CLP (DSP0214) is
a part of DMTF's SMASH initiative, which is a suite of specifications
that deliver architectural semantics, industry standard protocols and
profiles to unify the management of the data center. The SM CLP standard
was driven by a market requirement for a common command language to
manage a heterogeneous server environment. Platform vendors provide tools
and commands in order to perform systems management on their servers.
SM CLP unifies management of multi-vendor servers by providing a common
command language for key server management tasks. The spec also enables
common scripting and automation using a variety of tools. The SM CLP spec
allows management solution vendors to deliver many benefits to IT
customers. The spec enables data center administrators to securely manage
their heterogeneous server environments using a command line protocol
and a common set of commands. SM CLP also enables the development of
common scripts to increase data center automation, which can help
significantly reduce management costs... The CLP is defined as a
character-based message protocol and not as an interface, in a fashion
similar to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (RFC 2821). The CLP is a
command/response protocol, which means that a text command message is
transmitted from the Client over the transport protocol to the
Manageability Access Point (MAP). The MAP receives the command and
processes it. A text response message is then transmitted from the MAP
back to the Client... The CLP supports generating XML output data
(Extensible Markup Language, Third edition), as well as keyword mode
and modes for plain text output. XML was chosen as a supported output
format due to its acceptance in the industry, establishment as a
standard, and the need for Clients to import data obtained through the
CLP into other applications.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
XML and Government Schizophrenia
The U.S. Government is very leery of technology fads and that is why
it often has a love/hate relationship with XML. For every technology
that exists, the government has a huge legacy investment. So, while the
corporate world may turn on a dime and quickly adopt the latest and
greatest thing -- the government must contend with huge legacy issues,
a two-year (minimum) budget planning cycle, and a horde of technologists
actively engaged and personally invested in that legacy technology that
you want to throw away! [...] Let me briefly discuss a program that I
initiated when working for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) started as a joint-venture
between DHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to harmonize and speed
up the process of information sharing between the federal government
and state and local governments -- actually State, Local and Tribal
governments. The basic idea is that it combines a registry of standard
data objects (modeled via XML Schema), a process for quickly producing
an exchange message, a governance process for the model, and robust tool
support. The model leveraged and extended an existing model called the
Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM). It is widely used by law
enforcement at all levels of government and now is also being widely
used at DHS. It has multiple success stories behind it including the
Amber Alert and the national sex offender registry. I highly encourage
everyone to look at it and help make it better. So, what does this mean
for Government Schizophrenia? For information sharing, XML is a favorite
but is attacked continuously in relation to weak data modeling support,
weak encoding of binary objects, performance issues, and many more...
it often has a love/hate relationship with XML. For every technology
that exists, the government has a huge legacy investment. So, while the
corporate world may turn on a dime and quickly adopt the latest and
greatest thing -- the government must contend with huge legacy issues,
a two-year (minimum) budget planning cycle, and a horde of technologists
actively engaged and personally invested in that legacy technology that
you want to throw away! [...] Let me briefly discuss a program that I
initiated when working for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) started as a joint-venture
between DHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to harmonize and speed
up the process of information sharing between the federal government
and state and local governments -- actually State, Local and Tribal
governments. The basic idea is that it combines a registry of standard
data objects (modeled via XML Schema), a process for quickly producing
an exchange message, a governance process for the model, and robust tool
support. The model leveraged and extended an existing model called the
Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM). It is widely used by law
enforcement at all levels of government and now is also being widely
used at DHS. It has multiple success stories behind it including the
Amber Alert and the national sex offender registry. I highly encourage
everyone to look at it and help make it better. So, what does this mean
for Government Schizophrenia? For information sharing, XML is a favorite
but is attacked continuously in relation to weak data modeling support,
weak encoding of binary objects, performance issues, and many more...
Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) May Soon Eclipse SOA
A recent blog post questions whether services oriented architecture
(SOA) was driving substantive transformation inside of enterprise IT.
My conclusion is that something is not quite right in SOA-ville. The
uptake of general-purpose service enablement is by no means a hockey
stick trend line. The adoption patterns some five years into the SOA
evolutionary path do not show a slam dunk demand effect. The role,
impact and importance of SOA is, in fact, ambiguous -- still. Many
see it as merely an offshoot of EAI, rather than a full-blown paradigm
shift. Meanwhile, some other trends that do demonstrate more of a
hockey stick adoption pattern -- social media, Ruby/Phython, RESTful
interactions, and RIAs -- are worth a fresh look in the context of SOA.
The new kids on the innovation block are experimenting at break-neck
speed with social media, social networking, Ruby on Rails, SaaS, Python,
REST and the vital mix of rich Internet application (RIA) approaches.
Something is going on here that shows the compelling attraction of
better collaboration and sharing methods, of self-defining social and
work teams, of faster and easier applications development, of not
moving old systems to the Web but just moving to the Web directly, and
the recognition that off-the-wire applications with fine UIs are the
future... I'm wondering now whether the window for holistic SOA
deployment and value, as it has been classically defined, is being
eclipsed. Is it possible that Web interfaces and data disintermediation
for legacy applications will be enough? Is it possible that exposing
the old applications, and reducing costs of IT support via consolidation
and modernization is enough? In short, is the path of least resistance
to business transformation one that necessarily requires a fording of
the SOA stream? Or is there a shorter, dry path that goes directly to
Web oriented architecture? Is SOA therefore the impediment or empowerment
to transformation on the right scale and at Internet time?
(SOA) was driving substantive transformation inside of enterprise IT.
My conclusion is that something is not quite right in SOA-ville. The
uptake of general-purpose service enablement is by no means a hockey
stick trend line. The adoption patterns some five years into the SOA
evolutionary path do not show a slam dunk demand effect. The role,
impact and importance of SOA is, in fact, ambiguous -- still. Many
see it as merely an offshoot of EAI, rather than a full-blown paradigm
shift. Meanwhile, some other trends that do demonstrate more of a
hockey stick adoption pattern -- social media, Ruby/Phython, RESTful
interactions, and RIAs -- are worth a fresh look in the context of SOA.
The new kids on the innovation block are experimenting at break-neck
speed with social media, social networking, Ruby on Rails, SaaS, Python,
REST and the vital mix of rich Internet application (RIA) approaches.
Something is going on here that shows the compelling attraction of
better collaboration and sharing methods, of self-defining social and
work teams, of faster and easier applications development, of not
moving old systems to the Web but just moving to the Web directly, and
the recognition that off-the-wire applications with fine UIs are the
future... I'm wondering now whether the window for holistic SOA
deployment and value, as it has been classically defined, is being
eclipsed. Is it possible that Web interfaces and data disintermediation
for legacy applications will be enough? Is it possible that exposing
the old applications, and reducing costs of IT support via consolidation
and modernization is enough? In short, is the path of least resistance
to business transformation one that necessarily requires a fording of
the SOA stream? Or is there a shorter, dry path that goes directly to
Web oriented architecture? Is SOA therefore the impediment or empowerment
to transformation on the right scale and at Internet time?
SaaS Single Sign-On: It's Time for a Lighter Approach
SaaS brings a lot of advantages to businesses - no need to invest in
purchasing and maintaining licenses and infrastructure, and no need
to worry about upgrades and bug fixes. Larger companies, however, face
a major challenge related to user authentication and management. Larger
companies have invested a lot of time and effort in improving user
productivity, compliance and security, and in cutting user management
costs. They have done so using technologies like single sign-on and
centralized user management. SaaS applications are now challenging
those efforts and threatening to bring them back to the situation
where every user has several different usernames and passwords and
the customers have several different user directories to maintain.
Currently there are a few common ways for SaaS providers to give users
single sign-on and/or to let customers use their internal user management
solutions to manage access to the SaaS application: (1) Identity
federation; (2) Delegated authentication; (3) Encrypted links; (4)
User directory synchronization. Identity federation, as a concept,
is exactly what is needed -- SaaS providers can offer customers single
sign-on and automated user management based on current information in
their internal user directory. Identity federation based on SAML,
WS-Federation or ADFS, however, requires each customer to invest in
and roll out software compliant with those technologies... Delegated
authentication provides users single sign-on by using an existing
logon, for instance on a corporate intranet, to generate tokens that
can be used to grant access to a SaaS application. However, delegated
authentication does not bring any help to maintenance of user profiles
and access rights, which still have to be maintained manually in the
application. It also requires time and technical resources by the
customer... Google Analytics, the SaaS application for monitoring web
site usage, offers a different and interesting view to the problem.
Each Analytics customer needs to integrate Analytics with its web site
in order to be able to collect and monitor usage statistics. By
choosing a scripting integration model requiring only a few lines of
JavaScript on the web pages, Google managed to lower the requirements
on the customers' web sites and the technical skills required to do
the integration. As a result, they managed to get hundreds of thousands
of customers in 18 months...
purchasing and maintaining licenses and infrastructure, and no need
to worry about upgrades and bug fixes. Larger companies, however, face
a major challenge related to user authentication and management. Larger
companies have invested a lot of time and effort in improving user
productivity, compliance and security, and in cutting user management
costs. They have done so using technologies like single sign-on and
centralized user management. SaaS applications are now challenging
those efforts and threatening to bring them back to the situation
where every user has several different usernames and passwords and
the customers have several different user directories to maintain.
Currently there are a few common ways for SaaS providers to give users
single sign-on and/or to let customers use their internal user management
solutions to manage access to the SaaS application: (1) Identity
federation; (2) Delegated authentication; (3) Encrypted links; (4)
User directory synchronization. Identity federation, as a concept,
is exactly what is needed -- SaaS providers can offer customers single
sign-on and automated user management based on current information in
their internal user directory. Identity federation based on SAML,
WS-Federation or ADFS, however, requires each customer to invest in
and roll out software compliant with those technologies... Delegated
authentication provides users single sign-on by using an existing
logon, for instance on a corporate intranet, to generate tokens that
can be used to grant access to a SaaS application. However, delegated
authentication does not bring any help to maintenance of user profiles
and access rights, which still have to be maintained manually in the
application. It also requires time and technical resources by the
customer... Google Analytics, the SaaS application for monitoring web
site usage, offers a different and interesting view to the problem.
Each Analytics customer needs to integrate Analytics with its web site
in order to be able to collect and monitor usage statistics. By
choosing a scripting integration model requiring only a few lines of
JavaScript on the web pages, Google managed to lower the requirements
on the customers' web sites and the technical skills required to do
the integration. As a result, they managed to get hundreds of thousands
of customers in 18 months...
RSA Conference 2008: Concordia Done, OSIS To Go
The author blogs on the the Project Concordia workshop held at RSA 2008
on 2008-04-07, showing SAML 2.0/WS-Federation single sign-on from a
service provider to an identity provider, the identity provider
authenticating the user via a managed information card and sending
claims from the card to the service provider as SAML 2.0 attributes.
Note that not every combination of SAML 2.0/WS-Federation SP, IdP and
Information Card STS completely works, but enough that the approach was
proven. Slides from the "Concordia/RSA Interop Demo" describe the
products involved. OpenSSO primarily attracts enterprises interested in
deploying a web access management or federation solution using open
source tools. An Information Card RP Extension has been contributed
by Patrick Petit. The OAIS (Open Source Identity Systems) demonstration
shows the OSIS User centric identity network interoperability between
identity providers, card selectors, browsers and websites demonstrates
how users can 'click-in' to sites via self-issued and managed
information cards, or i-cards. Open ID, Higgins Identity Framework,
Microsoft CardSpace, SAML, WSTrust, Kerberos and X.509 components
interoperate within an identity layer from open-source parts...
on 2008-04-07, showing SAML 2.0/WS-Federation single sign-on from a
service provider to an identity provider, the identity provider
authenticating the user via a managed information card and sending
claims from the card to the service provider as SAML 2.0 attributes.
Note that not every combination of SAML 2.0/WS-Federation SP, IdP and
Information Card STS completely works, but enough that the approach was
proven. Slides from the "Concordia/RSA Interop Demo" describe the
products involved. OpenSSO primarily attracts enterprises interested in
deploying a web access management or federation solution using open
source tools. An Information Card RP Extension has been contributed
by Patrick Petit. The OAIS (Open Source Identity Systems) demonstration
shows the OSIS User centric identity network interoperability between
identity providers, card selectors, browsers and websites demonstrates
how users can 'click-in' to sites via self-issued and managed
information cards, or i-cards. Open ID, Higgins Identity Framework,
Microsoft CardSpace, SAML, WSTrust, Kerberos and X.509 components
interoperate within an identity layer from open-source parts...
Concordia Project Demonstrates Multi-Protocol Interoperability
The Concordia Project, a global cross-industry initiative formed by
members of the identity community to drive harmonization and
interoperability among identity initiatives and protocols, announced
its first interoperability event taking place at RSA Conference 2008
in San Francisco on Monday, April 7 from 9:00am - 12:30pm. The event
will include FuGen Solutions, Internet2, Microsoft, Oracle, Ping
Identity, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs demonstrating varying
interoperability scenarios using Information Card, Liberty Alliance,
and WS-* identity protocols. Over 500 RSA Conference participants have
registered to attend the Concordia Project interoperability event to
date. The April 7 demonstrations have been developed to meet use case
scenarios presented to the Concordia Project by enterprise, education
and government organizations deploying digital identity management
systems and requiring multi-protocol interoperability of identity
specifications. Since the formal launch of the Concordia Project in
June of 2007, deployer use case scenarios involving Information Card,
Liberty Alliance and WS-* identity protocols have been presented by
AOL, the Government of British Columbia, Boeing, Chevron, General
Motors, Internet2, theNew Zealand State Services Commission, the US
GSA and the University of Washington. Concordia members decided
collectively on what interoperability demonstrations should be developed
first based on identity management commonalities and priorities
identified by the majority of deploying organizations. During the RSA
Conference event, Concordia members will demonstrate multi-protocol
interoperability based on two of the fourteen use case scenarios
submitted to the project to date. The first includes Oracle, Internet2,
FuGen Solutions, Microsoft, Ping Identity, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs
and is characterized by a user authenticating to an identity provider
(IdP) using an InfoCard and communicating that authentication to a
relying party through either SAML 2.0 or WS-Federation protocols. The
second includes Internet2, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs
demonstrating SSO flow between chained SAML and WS-Federation protocols.
members of the identity community to drive harmonization and
interoperability among identity initiatives and protocols, announced
its first interoperability event taking place at RSA Conference 2008
in San Francisco on Monday, April 7 from 9:00am - 12:30pm. The event
will include FuGen Solutions, Internet2, Microsoft, Oracle, Ping
Identity, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs demonstrating varying
interoperability scenarios using Information Card, Liberty Alliance,
and WS-* identity protocols. Over 500 RSA Conference participants have
registered to attend the Concordia Project interoperability event to
date. The April 7 demonstrations have been developed to meet use case
scenarios presented to the Concordia Project by enterprise, education
and government organizations deploying digital identity management
systems and requiring multi-protocol interoperability of identity
specifications. Since the formal launch of the Concordia Project in
June of 2007, deployer use case scenarios involving Information Card,
Liberty Alliance and WS-* identity protocols have been presented by
AOL, the Government of British Columbia, Boeing, Chevron, General
Motors, Internet2, theNew Zealand State Services Commission, the US
GSA and the University of Washington. Concordia members decided
collectively on what interoperability demonstrations should be developed
first based on identity management commonalities and priorities
identified by the majority of deploying organizations. During the RSA
Conference event, Concordia members will demonstrate multi-protocol
interoperability based on two of the fourteen use case scenarios
submitted to the project to date. The first includes Oracle, Internet2,
FuGen Solutions, Microsoft, Ping Identity, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs
and is characterized by a user authenticating to an identity provider
(IdP) using an InfoCard and communicating that authentication to a
relying party through either SAML 2.0 or WS-Federation protocols. The
second includes Internet2, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs
demonstrating SSO flow between chained SAML and WS-Federation protocols.
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