A Preliminary Approach on Ontology-Based Visual Query Formulation for Big Data

Abstract

Data access in an enterprise setting is a determining factor for the potential of value creation processes such as sense-making, decision making, and intelligence analysis. As such, providing friendly data access tools that directly engage domain experts (i.e., end-users) with data, as opposed to the situations where database/IT experts are required to extract data from databases, could substantially increase competitiveness and profitability. However, the ever increasing volume, complexity, velocity, and variety of data, known as the Big Data phenomenon, renders the end-user data access problem even more challenging. Optique, an ongoing European project with a strong industrial perspective, aims to countervail the Big Data effect, and to enable scalable end-user data access to traditional relational databases by using an ontology-based approach. In this paper, we specifically present the preliminary design and development of our ontology-based visual query system and discuss directions for addressing the Big Data effect. © Springer In national Publishing Switzerland 2013.