Open Semantic Framework Running on Micro Instances

Frederick Giasson
After releasing the new Open Semantic Framework Installer, we started to test it on machines with all kind of different specifications: different CPU limits, different amount of memory, etc. One of the setup that caught our attention was Amazon’s EC2 Micro Instance.

The Micro Instance is a virtual server type that has been introduced by Amazon a little bit more than a year ago. As described by Amazon, Micro Instances are:

Instances of this family provide a small amount of consistent CPU resources and allow you to burst CPU capacity when additional cycles are available. They are well suited for lower throughput applications and web sites that consume significant compute cycles periodically.

We were intrigued by this particular type of instance because we wanted to know how the complete Open Semantic Framework stack could operate on such a small server instance.

Micro Instance Specifications

The Micro Instance’s specifications are as follow:

  • 613 MB memory
  • Up to 2 EC2 Compute Units (for short periodic bursts)
  • 32-bit or 64-bit platform
  • I/O Performance: Low

Note that a EC2 Compute Unit provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor.

Installing The Stack

Installing the stack on the Amazon Micro Instance, using the OSF Installer, is not the fastest experience in the World. In fact, installing the complete stack takes up to 10 hours (5 minutes of your time, but compiling and installing everything takes about 10 hours of CPU time).

The problem is that installing OSF is a CPU intensive task, while the Micro instance is not. The micro instance can sustain small CPU bursts, but it can’t sustain the creation and compilation of the entire stack. That means that the CPU cycles won’t be available to the instance, and that the CPU consumption of that instance will be throttled by Amazon, which will significantly slow down the installation process.

However, as you will see below, once OSF is installed on the Micro instance, the complete stack responds perfectly to all queries sent to it.

Creating an AMI

The only time you have to spend 10 hours to install the OSF stack on an Amazon Micro Instance is the first time. After that, you would only have to create an Amazon AMI from that vanilla OSF instance for future use. If you proceed that way, you will lower the installation time from 10 hours to a few minutes.

Reading and Searching Data

The testing we did for reading and searching data from structWSF shows that performances are as good as the ones you would get from a small instance with a normal workload. The Crud: Read and the Search structWSF endpoints are fully responsive and operational.

Creating, Updating and Deleting Data

The testing we did for creating, updating and deleting entire datasets takes more time than with a small instance even if the instance is dedicated to that only task, without any other queries processed by the instance at the same time. The reason for this decrease in performances is due to the CPU throttling done by Amazon for this kind of more CPU intensive task. However, since individual records creation, updating and deletion creates “CPU Peaks”, such isolated create/update/delete queries doesn’t greatly affect the overall performances of the instance.

What This Type Of Instance Is Good For?

We found that such small instances were perfect for data collection activities performed by a single person, or a small group of collaborators. We also found that it could be used by low-traffic websites such as personal web portal, personal blogs, etc. The complete OSF stack is fully responsive and our analysis shows that the resources (CPU and Memory) are stable and responsive with a normal workload.

Conclusion

Such a small server instance can easily be used to create a personal data collection endpoint, or a personal, or small, data presentation portal such as Mike’s semantic web Sweet Tools. It is well suited for data portals that require reading and searching of data with occasional data changes (addition, removal and modification of instance records).

Volkswagen UK’s Search Engine Powered by structWSF

Frederick Giasson
It is now official, Volkswagen UK‘s search engine is now powered by structWSF. Their new contextual search engine has been released last Friday. I covered the underlying architecture in one of my recent blog post: Volkswagen’s RDF Data Management Workflow.

 

 

John Streit, head of technology at Tribal DDB, described the two key advantages of using the structWSF (part of the Open Semantic Framework (OSF)) for their website in an interview with Wired UK:

The first is that it gives you a single place to access data. Streit explains: “Applications often need to retrieve data from multiple sources which adds complexity and development time. By using this technology we can get everything we need from a single place which drastically lowers development time and running costs.” Furthermore the exposure of data improves search and means that it can be repurposed in new and imaginative ways.

The Open Semantic Framework Installer

Frederick Giasson
We are excited to introduce the first Open Semantic Framework installation script. This new installer application will install and configure the entire Open Semantic Framework stack for you. It will take about 10 minutes of your time, and will process in the background for a few hours while everything necessary to build the OSF stack is downloaded and compiled. Open Semantic Framework Installer

The only thing you have to do to run the OSF Installer is to issue the few commands outlined below, and then to answer a few questions in the process (which, since most of them use the standard default values, is pretty easy).

The OSF Installer is a major addition to the Open Semantic Framework since it now enables a greater number of people (mere mortals) to install and use the stack, and it enables much faster deployment of the system.

The full installation manual, where each of the steps performed by the installer is explained in detail, is available as a reference here.

Requirements

The current version of the Open Semantic Framework Installer is fully operational on:

  1. Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)
  2. 32 Bits Operating System
  3. Access to internet from the server
  4. 5GIG of disk space on the partition where you are installing OSF

Eventually this installer will be upgraded for 64-bits operating systems, and for other Linux distributions. Also, the current installer should work on newer versions of Ubuntu, but it has only been tested to date on the latest LTS version.

Installing the Open Semantic Framework

The only manual steps need to do to install the Open Semantic Framework are to:

  1. Create a folder where to install OSF on your server
  2. Download the osf-install.zip installation package
  3. Make the osf-install.sh installation script executable
  4. Run the osf-install.sh installation script
  5. Answer the questions asked by the installer

Here are the commands you have to run:

[cc lang=’bash’ line_numbers=’true’ ]

cd /mnt/
sudo wget https://github.com/downloads/structureddynamics/Open-Semantic-Framework-Installer/osf-installer-v1.0a4.zip
sudo unzip osf-installer-v1.0a4.zip
cd `ls -d structureddynamics*/`
sudo chmod 755 osf-install.sh
./osf-install.sh

[/cc]

conStruct and structWSF Upgrades

In the process, both conStruct and structWSF have been enhanced to enable automatic upgrading in the future. Starting with structWSF version 1.0a92 and conStruct version 6.x-1.0-beta9, future upgrades should be done automatically using automatic upgrading procedures.

However, to enable this, existing users will have to upgrade their current versions manually to establish the new automatic upgrades baseline.

Next Steps

Once you have installed the OSF stack, you next query the structWSF Web service endpoints, and import datasets using conStruct. Here are a few things you can do to start exploring the Open Semantic Framework:

  1. Start exploring structWSF
  2. Start exploring conStruct
  3. Start exploring Ontologies usage in OSF
  4. Start importing and manipulating datasets
  5. Start exploring the Open Semantic Framework architecture
  6. Start playing with the structWSF web service endpoints

Since everything is installed on your server, so you only have to play with the stack now. If you break something, just ping us on the mailing list or re-install it without worrying about each installation steps!

Help

It may be possible that you experience some issues with this new OSF Installer. If that is the case, I would suggest your to make an outreach to the Open Semantic Web Mailing List so that we fix it on the Git repository.

Just write an email that includes the specifications of the server where you are trying to install OSF on. Then tell us where the issue happens in the installation process. Also add any logs that could be helpful in debugging the issue.

Conclusion

This is the first version of the OSF installer, but this is a real balm for installing OSF. As noted, this installer will eventually be upgraded to support 64-bit servers and other Linux distributions. Also, any help improving this installer from Bash wizards would naturally be greatly welcomed.

Role and Use of Ontologies in the Open Semantic Framework

Frederick Giasson
Ontologies are to the Open Semantic Framework what humans were to the Mechanical Turk. The hidden human in the Mechanical Turk was orchestrating all and every chess move. However, to the observers, the automated chess machine was looking just like it: a new kind of intelligent machine. We were in 1770.

Ontologies plays exactly the same role for the Open Semantic Framework (OSF): they orchestrate all and every moves for all the pieces within OSF. They are what instructs structWSF, the Semantic Components, conStruct, and all other derivate pieces of user interfaces how to behave.

In this (lengthy) blog post, I will present the main ontologies that have an impact on different parts of OSF. We will see how different ontology classes and properties, and how the description of the records indexed in the system, can impact the behaviors of OSF.

In addition to this post, Mike has also published a blog post today that overviews the overall OSF ontology modularization and architecture.

Continue reading “Role and Use of Ontologies in the Open Semantic Framework” →