0. Point out Web URI of presentation

1. Introduce self
   - Software developer
   - Currently freelance:
       research
       development
       Internet protocols consulting
   - Last 5-6 years:
       Internet standards with IETF and W3C
   - Last 3 years working with RDF:
       Represents machine-processable information on the web
         (as opposed to just "data")
       Believe significance will be comparable with WWW in mid-90s

2. Introduce presentation
   - About RDF
   - Applied to network configuration
   - Example is my own home network
   - Goal of project to explore use of:
       RDF metadata to describe access policy
       RDF tools to map policy to network devices

3. Network configuration application
   - Introduce scenario
       Note enforcement by Cisco router
       Note role of IP address
   - Sketch of application framework
       Note files needed by network devices
       Highlight role of RDF and RDF tools
       Semantic and syntactic transformations
       
4. Introducing RDF
   - RDF is "Resource Description Framework"
   - What is RDF?
       A web document format to represent "metadata" - data about data
       A format to represent information about on the web
       Base language for the "Semantic Web"
   - Semantic Web
       Extends expressive power of the Web
       Augments human-readable web pages with machine-processable information
   - Defined by W3C
       W3C is international body who develop and promote standards for WWW
   - Note that XML syntax can obscure essential simplicity of RDF

4.1 Simple graph-based model
    - Diagram
        describes two "resources" - homenet:GK and homenet:octarine
        each arc describes a relationship between values at each end
        label on arc describes kind of relationship
        note similarity to hypertext - hypertext is a special case
        talk about some arcs:  rdf:type, foaf:name, foaf:mbox, user:hostIP
    - Labels shown are "QName" representations of URIs

4.2 URI based identifiers, and QNames
    - URIs are a key concept for the Web, and RDF
    - URIs are *the* identifier format of the Web, as in http://www...
    - URIs can be created to name any given object, concept or piece of data
    - QName format
    - RDF also allows "reference by description"

4.3 XML syntax for RDF
    - Recommended format for exchanging RDF between Internet applications
    - Example shown has exactly same meaning as the graph shown previously

4.4 Notation3 syntax for RDF
    - Easier for people to read and write
    - Format used for home network data
    - Example shown is same as previous examples

4.5 Formal semantics
    - Note different formats but same information
    - This is reflected in the formal semantics
    - Increases confidence that applications exchanging RDF 
      will draw same conclusions from it
    - Does affect the design of information represention in RDF

5. Application details
   - Review diagram
   - Policy definition in RDF Notation 3 syntax
       describe people (users)
         note host machine associated with user
         note access policy associated with user
       describe machines
         note IP address associated with machine
       describe access policies
         protocol and port number identifies application
           e.g. protocol=TCP and port=80 is usually web access
           this information is accessible in Internet traffic,
             in particular, by the Cisco router
         vCalendar data indicates when access is allowed by policy
   - Semantic rules transform
       from RDF description of policy
       to   RDF description of network configuration
       rules interpreted by CWM software by Tim Berners-Lee
   - RDF report generator transforms
       from RDF description of network configuration
       to   configuration files for network devices
       Report generation my own report generation software
   - Note that tools used are not specific to this application

6. Summary

6.1 Home network configuration application
    - RDF allows greater reuse of common software tools
    - RDF also allows reuse of information design in the form
      of existing "vocabularies" (or "ontologies")
    - Existing standards work (e.g. vCalendar) can be mapped to RDF
    - Use of RDF to integrate legacy systems;  
        newer systems could use RDF-based data directly
    - The key process used here is "inference":
        a little inference can go a long way, but some 
        applications may need more powerful inference capabilities,
        which may be provided (as now) by special-purpose software, 
        or by general purpose inference software.
    - The application described is very limited.
      It could be improved in many ways.
      A few are:
        better inference capabilities
        support other network devices from same access policy data 
          (i.e. other than Cisco)
        generation of Linux-based frewall configuration

6.2 Using RDF
    - RDF is simple, and mostly based on long-established ideas
    - RDF is syntax-complete
      (cf. XML is a *framework* for defining application data syntax)
    - RDF provides a *semantic* framework comparable to way that
      XML provides a *syntactic* framework
    - RDF can support a range of general-purpose tools
      I expect to see a range of semantic tools based on RDF that
      can be used together in a fashion similar to Unix filters
      and pipes, where RDF provides the "semantic pipe" between 
      applications.

6.3 RDF is not specific to this application.
    - Note other applications of RDF as listed

7. Acknowledgements
    - XML network configuration architecture paper
    - This work was done as part of 
      EU-funded SWAD-E project
      participation by RAL
        use of SW technologies for grid computing
        formation of virtual organizations

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$Log: HomeNetwork-PresentationNotes.txt,v $
Revision 1.2  2003/01/06 15:04:44  graham
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