I have been told that our RDBMS our old news and that RDF with OWL and SPARQL is the new wave replacement. I am not a believer yet. Why would I want a semantic web implementation and why would I not want this type of implementation? We have a large complex system and deal mostly with file and sensor data that is analyzed in various ways. Can these standards/ methods replace very large database capabilities? Can very complex relationships be captured? Is the richness of SQL supported such as nested queries, procedures, unions, self joins, roll ups and roll downs? I have been told that the new wave is far easier to maintain than RDBMS schemas. RDBMS are bad because the schema must be defined before hand and are difficult to maintain and hard to work with. While sematic web implementations are far easier to work with and to mantain. If the metadata changes, just change the underlying ontology, in fact it can be made to be self maintaining. I am wondering how association of data can be changed without having to sort out the underlying file to the RDF schema. Seems like there is a maintenace issue somewhere. I am having a hard time finding information that is understandable. Everytime I talk to these guys, I feel knocked over by AI terms and acroymn soup. I kinda of feel I need hip boots and a shovel, but I hate to be the type that is insisting the world is flat. Can anyone help with my confusion?
