Database Trends and Applications Vol. 16 No.7

DB2 on Linux Powers High Performance Database Research Center

By Walt Jordan

Now that you have the data, what can you do with it? That has been a question that has confronted researchers since commercial imaging satellites were launched several years. The satellites have the capacity to stream terabytes and terabytes of data to earth-capturing images of neighborhoods, farm land, erosion patterns and a lot of other useful information. Making that data easily accessible to a broad cross-section of users has long been a challenge.

That is the challenge being addressed by Naphtali Rishi, and his team of researchers at the High Performance Database Research Center (HPDRC) at Florida International University. Rishe has led the development of Terrafly, a Web-enabled system designed to aid in the visualization of remotely sensed and spatial data. Funded in part by multimillion grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation, TerraFly, the research center's highest profile project (www.terrafly.com) is based on a 20 terabyte database, which includes textual, remotely sensed and graphical data such as maps. The data can be viewed and manipulated using standard Web browsers. As users "fly over" remotely sensed data, other digital data associated with each specific location can also be viewed. "TerraFly is intended to be the world's largest database accessible through the Web," Rishe told DBTA in an exclusive interview.

TerraFly is being developed at NASA' Regional Applications Center, which is a part of the HPDRC. According to Rishe, the project could have a wide range of applications. For example, potential homeowners could survey different possible neighborhoods and demographic statistics, the educational facilities, the location of shopping areas and other pertinent information could be displayed. Or people planning a vacation could explore different getaway spots and then automatically access the online reservation system. Indeed, the opportunities for TerraFly seem so enormous that officials at Florida International University estimate that it may generate up to $1 billion year in revenues marketing the technology.

TerraFly is powered by a DB2 database running on Linux on an SP Supercomputer. "I like the efficiency of DB2," said Rishe. "I look to cost effectiveness of DB2 on Linux. And I like the good adherence to standards." IBM has been a generous supporter of the HPDBRC. Florida International is a participant in the IBM DB2 Scholars Program, which supports organizations dedicated to setting new standards for database application excellence, FIU receives DB2 site licenses for development purposes at no cost. This helped FIU get its project off the ground cost efficiently. Moreover IBM has provided a $6.7 million grant to fully outfit the High Performance Database Research Center with state-of-the-art hardware and software.

"The SP is the biggest horsepower unit I have in my possession," said Rishe.

The TerraFly project is part of an extensive research program into database technologies conducted by the 90 professionals associated with the HPDBRC including 10 principal investigators. The specific research questions involved with TerraFly include developing algorithms designed to manage large amounts of imagery and to link imagery with vector and point data. Finally, Rishe and his team are looking at ways to more efficiently deliver data over the Internet. So far, the project has been awarded three patents and has several other patents pending.

Rishe's research into semantic/object-oriented databases has led to the development of two applications. The first component is called a Semantic Wrapper and is an open middleware system that provides a semantic view of relational databases and enables queries using Semantic SQL. "It is a non-invasive enhancement of relational databases allowing empowerment of the willing users to easily pose complex queries to existing databases via familiar tools," Rishe said.

The Semantic Wrapper reverse engineers a relational database to create semantic schema. The process also helps DBAs take inventory, document and analyze legacy databases. "It lets you take control of your legacy databases," Rishe told DBTA. "You get a map of the database logic and can understand what kind of queries can deliver."

Rishe has also developed a complete semantic DBMS. The semantic database stores the meanings of information as facts about objects. With a semantic database, no keys are needed and any query can be run ad hoc. Rishe hopes to commercialize both the Semantic Wrapper and the Semantic DBMS. More information about he products can be found at http://hpdrc.cs.fiu.edu/

Rishe's work has won strong endorsements from the research community. After a demonstration, William Campbell, head of NASA Goddard Applied Information Sciences Branch, wrote, "Your semantic database research is specifically germane to many of the challenges NASA and other data generating institutions currently face I the management and retrieval of information relevant to our user community."

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