DERI teams up with Belgium’s UCB on open-source software

24 Feb 2012

Image of linked data. Image courtesy of Linkeddata.org

The Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at NUI Galway is starting a collaboration with the Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB to ramp up its D2RQ open-source software project.

D2RQ is a software used when exposing relational data sources as linked data, ie, using the web to connect related data that wasn’t previously linked or using the web to lower the barriers to linking data currently linked using other methods.

DERI said today that linked data principles are key to enable efficient data integration by providing a common format and language for data exchange and alignment.

It said it believes the D2RQ enhancements will enable businesses to expose linked data in the most efficient way for their business.

The Brussels-based UCB will be funding the next stage of the D2RQ project at DERI’s Linked Data Research Centre. The project itself is an open-source implementation of a database-to-RDF mapper.

It allows access to data stored in relational databases – think Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc – from software systems that are compatible with W3C’s semantic web standards, such as RDF and SPARQL.

NUIG campus
National University of Ireland, Galway campus, where DERI is based

The D2RQ software was originally developed starting in 2004 at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2007, development has been shared between DERI, Freie Universität Berlin and other contributors.

UCB said today that the main aim of the project would be to enhance some core enterprise features and to introduce new product features, including alignment with the latest R2RML W3C standards.

The biopharma company UCB itself is focused on the discovery and development of medicines and solutions for people living with severe diseases of the immune system or of the central nervous system.

“This is increasingly important as the linked data movement gains increasing momentum across the enterprise community. This project is the first step in helping D2RQ to become the defacto standard that is used across the enterprise, no matter if they are looking at linked data for the first time or implementing a quality solution,” said a UCB spokesperson today.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com