GraphDB Fundamentals¶

GraphDB Fundamentals builds the bases for working with graph databases that implement the W3C standards and particularly GraphDB. It is a training class delivered in a series of ten videos that will accompany you in your first steps of using triplestore graph databases.

Module 1: RDF & RDFS¶

RDF is a standardised format for graph data representation. This module introduces RDF, what RDFS adds to it, and how to use it by easy-to-follow examples from “The Flintstones” cartoon.

Module 2: SPARQL¶

SPARQL is a SQL-like query language for RDF data. It is recognised as one of the key tools of the Semantic technology and was made a standard by W3C. This module covers the basis of SPARQL, sufficient to create you first RDF graph and run you first SPARQL queries.

Module 3: Ontology¶

This module looks at Ontologies: what is ontology; what kind of resources does it describe; and what are the benefits of using ontologies. Ontologies are the core of how we model knowledge semantically. They are part of all Linked Data sets.

Module 4: GraphDB Installation¶

This video guides you through five steps in setting up your GraphDB: from downloading and deploying war files to your Tomcat Application Server, through launching Workbench, to final creation of a database and inserting and selecting data in it. Our favourite example from The Flintstones is available here as data for you to start with.

Module 5: Performance Tuning & Scalability¶

This module provides information on how to configure GraphDB for optimal performance and scalability. The size of datasets and the specific use cases benefit from different GraphDB memory configurations.

Watch this video to learn more about the four elements you can control as well as how to use GraphDB configuration tool. Tips about memory dedication during loading time and normal operation are provided as well.

Module 6: GraphDB Workbench & RDF4J¶

GraphDB Workbench is a web-based administration tool that allows you to manage GraphDB repositories, load and export data, monitor query execution, developing and executing queries, managing connectors and users. In this video we provide brief overview of the main functionality that you’ll be using most of the time.

Module 7: Loading Data¶

Data is the most valuable asset and GraphDB is designed to store and enhance it. This module shows you how to use GraphDB Workbench to load individual files and bulk data from directories. For huge datasets we recommend speeding up the process by using Parallel bulk loader.

Module 8: Rule Set & Reasoning Strategies¶

This module outlines the reasoning strategies (how to get new information from your data) as well as the rule set that are used by GraphDB. The three different reasoning strategies that are discussed are: forward chaining, backward chaining, hybrid chaining. They support various GraphDB Reasoning optimisation e.g. using owl:sameAs.

Module 9: Extensions¶

This module presents three extensions that empower GraphDB queries

RDFRank: calculates connectives of notes – similar to well known PageRank algorithm.
Geo-spatial: queries extracts data placed in rectangles, polygons and circles.
Full test search: provides faster assess to textual data based on Apache Lucene, Solr and ElasticSearch.

Module 10: Troubleshooting¶

This module covers troubleshooting some common issues. These issues include both installation and operational issues. Installation issues covered include: Workbench, Lucene, Informatiq and custom rule files. Operational issues covered include: statement counts, deleting statements and socket timeouts.