System and Method for Scalable Distribution of Semantic Web Updates

• US 20080005278A1
• Filed: 06/12/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Roy, Matthew N., Vincent, Christopher R., Betz, Joseph P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,519,599 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Disclosed are a method and system for scalable distribution of semantic web updates. A first embodiment of the invention leverages publish/subscribe technology to distribute those updates such that clients receive only the information they require. A second embodiment of the invention uses an access control feature to limit the statements clients are allowed to read. Optionally in this second embodiment, the same publish/subscribe messaging infrastructure may be used both to distribute updated semantic web data and also to distribute relevant changes to the access control information. The invention is particularly well suited for use with the Resource Description Framework (RDF) language.

Claims

1. A method of publishing updated semantic web data to distributed clients, comprising the steps of:

storing semantic web data in a server;

updating said semantic web data;

the server publishing a set of updates to said semantic web data; and

each of a plurality of distributed clients registering for a respective one subset of said updates, and receiving only updates within said respective one subset.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein:

the publishing step includes the step of the server publishing said updates to a given publish/subscribe infrastructure; and

the registering step includes the step of each of said plurality of clients registering with said given publish/subscribe infrastructure to receive the respective one subset of said updates.

3. The method according to claim 2, comprising the further step of said given publish/subscribe infrastructure distributing to each of said clients only updates for which the client has registered.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein:

said updates are updates to statements;

comprising the further step of providing access control lists that identify which ones of the clients arc allowed to read which ones of the statements; and

wherein the distributing step includes the step of the publish/subscribe infrastructure distributing statements only to clients permitted, as identified on the access to control lists, to read the statement.

5. The method according to claim 4, comprising the further step of:

storing the access control lists in an ACL database; and

wherein;

the publishing step includes the step of publishing each of the statements with a property having an identifier identifying one of the access control lists; and

the step of distributing statements only to clients permitted to read the statements includes the steps of

i) providing an update manager, and

ii) when each of the statements is published, the update manager finding in the ACL database the access control list identified by the identifier of the property with the published statement, and using said found access control list to determine which ones of the clients are entitled to read the statement.

6. The method according to claim 4, comprising the further steps of:

updating the access control lists;

providing an update manager; and

the server using the same publish/subscribe infrastructure used to distribute the updates to the semantic web data, to distribute to the update manager updates to the access control lists.

7. A server/client system for publishing updated semantic web data to distributed clients, comprising:

a server storing semantic web data, including updated semantic web data;

the server including instructions to publishing a set of the updated said semantic web data;

a plurality of distributed clients, each of said plurality of distributed clients including instructions for registering for a respective one subset of said updates; and

an infrastructure for distributing to each of said clients only updates within said respective one subset of updates for which the client has registered.

8. The system according to claim 7, wherein:

said infrastructure is a publish/subscribe infrastructure;

the server publishes said updates to said publish/subscribe infrastructure; and

each of said plurality of clients registers with said publish/subscribe infrastructure to receive the respective one subset of said updates.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein said publish/subscribe infrastructure distributes to each of said clients only updates for which the client has registered.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein said updates are updates to statements, further comprising access control lists that identify which ones of the clients are allowed to read which ones of the statements;

and wherein;

the publish/subscribe infrastructure distributes statements only to clients permitted, as identified on the access to control lists, to read the statement.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the server publishes each of the statements with a property having an identifier identifying one of the access control lists, and the system further comprises:

an ACL database storing the access control lists; and

an update manager wherein when each of the statements is published, the update manager finds in the ACL database the access control list identified by the identifier of the property with the published statement, and uses said found access control list to determine which ones of the clients are entitled to read the statement.

12. The system according to claim 10, further comprising:

an update manager; and

wherein;

the access control lists are updated, and

the server uses the same publish/subscribe infrastructure used to distribute the updates to the semantic web data, to distribute to the update manager the updates to the access control lists.

13. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for of publishing updated semantic web data to distributed clients, said method steps comprising:

storing semantic web data in a server;

updating said semantic web data;

the server publishing a set of updates to said semantic web data; and

each of a plurality of distributed clients registering for a respective one subset of said updates, and receiving only updates within said respective one subset.

14. The program storage device according to claim 13, wherein:

the publishing step includes the step of the server publishing said updates to a given publish/subscribe infrastructure; and

the registering step includes the step of each of said plurality of clients registering with said given publish/subscribe infrastructure to receive the respective one subset of said updates.

15. The program storage device according to claim 14, comprising the further step of said given publish/subscribe infrastructure distributing to each of said clients only updates for which the client has registered.

16. The program storage device according to claim 15, wherein:

said updates are updates to statements;

wherein said method steps comprise the further step of providing access control lists that identify which ones of the clients are allowed to read which ones of the statements; and

wherein the distributing step includes the step of the publish/subscribe infrastructure distributing statements only to clients permitted, as identified on the access to control lists, to read the statement.

17. The program storage device according to claim 16, for use with an update manager, and wherein said method steps comprise the further step of:

storing the access control lists in an ACL database; and

wherein;

the publishing step includes the step of publishing each of the statements with a property having an identifier identifying one of the access control lists; and

the step of distributing statements only to clients permitted to read the statements includes the step of when each of the statements is published, the update manager finding in the ACL database the access control list identified by the identifier of the property with the published statement, and using said found access control list to determine which ones of the clients are entitled to read the statement.

18. The program storage device according to claim 16, for use with an update manager, and wherein said method steps comprise the further steps of:

updating the access control lists;

the server using the same publish/subscribe infrastructure used to distribute the updates to the semantic web data, to distribute to the update manager updates to the access control lists.