Well-known companies used it. Whenever you have a large complex system -- such systems are not uncommon in this distributed and networked world--these technologies become critical. As creations like literate programming helped software engineering, I see these technologies help in creating literate large-scale systems management.
Semanticweb.com: What are some of the considerations eBay has had about using semantic technologies?
Sundaresan: Evaluating and picking the right set of platform implementations and toolset is key. What is the right serialized form to use? What is the right query language to use? What OWL implementation to use? There is Turtle, Sparql, OWL-DL and several others -- few in the open source domain and some commercial. Some of them are incomplete or do not scale to the extent we want to scale in terms of storing, retrieving, querying, and modifying. We want to be sure that we use the right interface system to produce usable and scalable visual aspects of the system.
Semanticweb.com: What has been the ramp-up in terms of developing IT staff expertise in these new technologies?
Sundaresan: The main purpose of these technologies is to build tools that are built on top of the technologies. Building the right tools with the right sets of interfaces will make the job of the IT staff significantly simpler. Instead of writing one-off scripts for provisioning or following adhoc mechanisms to manage these systems, if the staff uses these tools, they are much better off. You have a better cataloging system, a better way of managing, of identifying problem areas and fixing them. You get a holistic view of the entire system, and the task only gets easier from there.
Semanticweb.com: Does eBay see potential for these semantic technologies to be used in other capacities in its business?
Sundaresan: Wherever you have data, especially in large forms, you have a purpose for metadata, with which comes semantics. And eBay has a lot of data to deal with. Whether it is systems information as we discuss, user, session, and transaction information, query and search, catalog, product and item information -- the list goes on. Better description, management, and scaling of all of these is critical. The models, purpose, and implementations might vary from use-case to use-case. And not all metadata is clearly definable by a team of administrators.
But the fact remains that semantic technologies will take us well beyond data and syntax, and applying the right pragmatics in the right context is our vehicle for ultimate success.
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