Data collection and management can be a cumbersome process. Stakeholders must find ways to make this information accessible so they can use it to make crucial decisions for their organizations. However, vast data lakes can complicate this process.
Implementing semantic data architecture helps you bridge that gap, providing a way to structure information. It allows you to leverage data to help optimize business operations, customer management, and any other systems under your direction.
Semantics is the modern way to manage your data.
Semantics is Necessary for Organizational Data
Big data is changing the world. Organizations and businesses gather data on different topics to help improve services, functionality, and operations. While that is a good thing, data without context is nothing but a collection of information that has no meaning or use.
That’s why we need semantic technology, which changes how we see the world, or at least how we see data. Instead of isolated islands, semantic models connect data sets to give meaning to information. Data structures can be fixed and rigid, impeding growth, change, and adaptation.
However, having a data set that is dynamic, flexible, and open to new input and variables is comparable to a growth mindset. It allows you to improve your capabilities and performance. Semantic data modeling is the tool that provides that context, linking discrete bits of data into relevant information that helps you make informed decisions for your organization.
Semantic systems connect data points, making them easier to navigate, manage, and mine. This is especially true when the data comes from interactions with numerous sources, including customers, suppliers, employees, operations, and internal or external networks. Semantic architecture makes this unwieldy abundance of data easier to use, prioritize, and manage.
Let’s take a closer look at what it involves.
What is Semantic Data Modeling?
It’s easy today to collect large quantities of data and store them electronically, but how do organizations gather insight from this information? You must structure data to give it meaning. Semantic data modeling plays a crucial role in modern data management, allowing stakeholders to more conveniently analyze it.
Semantic modeling puts your data into context in three possible ways:
- Classification of information based on shared characteristics. This is an “instance of” relationship, i.e., employees are a group of people who work for the same company.
- Aggregation of data attributes. This is data with “has a” relationships, such as each employee has a name, age, and location.
- Generalization explains the relationship between two or more data sets. This uses “is a” relationships, like an employer is a type of manager.
The information is then organized with different frameworks. One common option is ontology. This formal framework is based on describing business data and the relationships between them.
Semantic data modeling creates meaning within these data relationships based on the parameters you define for your organization. It is adaptive to new conditions as your organization grows or changes, such as adding new business requirements, integrating disparate data sources, or answering unanticipated queries.
Semantic data architectures simplify data retrieval for your team members, like data scientists and business analysts. It helps them discover unrealized data patterns and relationships to extract a more accurate, meaningful analysis using artificial intelligence (AI).
Semantic Data Architectures Improve Analysis
Semantic data platforms use AI to contextualize data, turning it into actionable information. First, it breaks the data down into silos. Then, it adds the formal frameworks that provide descriptions of that date using classification, aggregation, and generalization. Finally, AI uses machine learning to analyze the relationships within your data.
It’s necessary to have a strong semantic layer built around relevant business specifications to maximize the benefits of system architecture. It also should be functional, modular, and secure while providing the flexibility necessary to integrate with other systems.
One such possibility is integrating your semantic architecture with business applications of the Internet of Things (IoT), a term for devices that send and receive data over a network. IoT technology collects data in real-time. While it is most recognizable in popular home technology, such as smart thermostats, it is used primarily in business. There are many applications of IoT in business, including:
- Transportation: Vehicle tracking using GPS sensors improves the efficiency of fleet management operations. IoT devices can also monitor vehicle conditions to avoid breakdowns, improve operations, and reduce repair costs.
- Finance: IoT devices can provide real-time payment processes, securing point-of-sale transactions with up-to-date fraud detection software. Financial firms can assess the security of devices attached to their systems to prevent cyber security breaches.
- Healthcare: Sensors in wearable technology can track real-time data for stats like heart rate, blood pressure, or glucose levels, allowing doctors and patients to monitor and manage issues. For clinical applications, IoT provides sensor-based asset tracking of equipment, patients, and medical personnel.
Integrating semantic architecture with IoT-generated data helps these industries process this data promptly to prevent problems. That can help streamline transportation systems and diffuse financial cybersecurity threats. It may even help doctors to save lives.
Another advantage of semantic data architecture is its flexibility.
Optimizing older technology with semantic data architectures
Semantic data architecture can integrate with both new technologies, like IoT, and older services, like wide area network technologies. For example, multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) is a wide-area network technology that routes data packets through dedicated hardware. Packet labels indicate the type of traffic it carries for prioritization.
Although it’s being replaced by cloud computing, MPLS provides clients with a secure, high-quality system through private, dedicated servers. Despite its age and waning popularity, many companies enjoy the convenience of having a telecom provider responsible for system interconnectivity rather than wasting IT personnel to manage a system like a dark fiber network. While it has some shortcomings compared to cloud networks, MPLS continues to offer value.
However, semantic data architecture can optimize MPLS systems. Packet labeling can be plugged into a framework using this architecture to improve these complex systems’ data flow. Semantic data helps people managing and maintaining MPLS systems to make more accurate decisions, improving the flexibility and longevity of an older network system.
Semantic data architecture organizes and categorizes data, making it easier to contextualize. This extraordinary feature improves data retrieval and prioritization within old, new, and current technology systems. Implementing this system around your priorities streamlines the decision-making processes in your organization.
