Dr. Dobb's | Move to a 'Human' Semantic Enabled Network: Part II

Move to a 'Human' Semantic Enabled Network: Part II

Here's Part II of an overview of the Semantic Enabled Network, its architectural components, characteristics, and practical applications to unlock new opportunities as organizations migrate toward the human network.

February 05, 2007
URL:http://drdobbs.com/web-development/move-to-a-human-semantic-enabled-network/197003158

Benefits of a Semantic Enabled Network
A Semantic Enabled Network can unleash the improved services and enhanced information by providing a framework for next-generation middleware and applications allowing them to interact much more intelligently. The network is aware of the context of each interaction and can understand and mark up information. Applications and middleware will no longer need to handle protocols and formats. The network will also manage the discovery and access of services and sources.

RDF is a critical component of the Semantic Enabled Network because it enables the semantics of interaction to be embedded in the information, instead of in the application interface. Using RDF, applications on a network could submit information to a network and let the network determine how and where to transmit the request. This process is similar to how the network is used today, but it will take place at the semantic level rather than at the lower communication layers.

To further enhance interaction, services can subscribe to information that enters the network. The information should utilize protocols and formats that the end point understands and validates. At the same time, the network can provide guaranteed delivery, high availability, quality of service, and load balancing. These activities can all be controlled in the network through the use of policies based upon the semantics of the information.

A great deal of work is needed to make the Semantic Enabled Network a reality. Ontology and structure need to be further developed, and network technology needs to become more application-aware. Network professionals must also become more familiar with XML and Semantic Web technologies to extract the benefits of a Semantic Enabled Network.

Putting a Semantic Network to Work
To understand the impact of this architecture lets examine a hypothetical example. Consider the needs of an organization such as the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. This huge organization must accommodate 1 billion border crossings per year, and trillions of dollars in cargo entering the country. It must support 300 border checkpoints on land, air and sea. And it must interface with more than 200 governments, hundreds of shipping organizations and thousands of medical facilities. Other organizations in the government as well as any large business have the same characteristics.

Organizations such as this face significant challenges in managing their business processes that go well beyond basic communication and applications support. For example, the department must manage and monitor a wide array of business events, such as visa applications, the arrival or departure of individuals, and processing packages in a cargo truck. And it must be able to monitor and correlate these types of events across multiple organizational systems, databases and user communities--often in time-sensitive environments.

The complexity involved in custom-building the communications between these types of application systems using traditional architectures is prohibitive when considering the time, resources and political support required. However, solutions based on the Semantic Enabled Network can address these issues in a different way because it is the only entity that has access to all the systems, services and information in the enterprise. And, since the network can now provide a wide variety of services to applications without requiring substantial re-programming, both legacy and new applications, data sources, and end users can be connected to support complex business environments.

The ability to understand the semantics of any communications between systems or people and route, transform, correlate and communicate it in the most effective manner through the definition of policies would allow people and systems to be integrated together extremely rapidly. At one time people found connecting networks together for basic communication was as complex. IP-based networks made this type of communications fundamentally simpler. Semantics in the network can do the same for communications and interactions with systems and people.

This type of development model also makes it possible for IT professionals to integrate their organizations with external partners and customers for better business-to-business communication. A Semantic Enabled Network provides the framework to implement these collaborative features now and to accommodate new features as needs change.

Conclusion
Today's approaches to improving the access to and integration of applications, services and information are inefficient and difficult to scale. They rely on processing a lot of the communications context at the edges of the network, and require additional processing hops as well as transactions.

Utilizing a Semantic Enabled Network embedded with the RDF standard and implemented at the upper levels addresses all the weaknesses of today's application-based solutions. Taking advantage of the power of IP, together with the upper layers of the OSI model, gives applications and information the services necessary for seamless access and richer interaction. With a Semantic Enabled Network, organizations can smoothly add new services and information sources to the network without increasing complexity or decreasing performance.

As the network moves from simple connectivity to the collaborative platform for life's experiences, the human network will play a pivotal role in helping companies achieve new levels of personalization that create value. The Semantic Enabled Network can help organizations tap the full potential of the network, enabling people to use it as the platform to enrich how they work, live, play and learn.

About the Author
William Ruh, as vice president of technology architecture in Cisco Services, has worldwide responsibility for the strategy, direction, coordination, and delivery of all AON- and SONA-related services. Bill brings more than 20 years of industry experience and expertise in enterprise middleware and integration technology. Prior to joining Cisco, Bill was the CTO and senior vice president at Software AG, Inc. Bill is also a noted author and has served in executive capacities at several entrepreneurial companies, including The Advisory Board and Concept Five Technologies.