[Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: data, context and events

Guy Sharon GUYSH at il.ibm.com
Wed Jun 15 13:22:58 CEST 2011


Ups - correct left that out.
So we agree - we are talking about structure not interpretation of the 
structure to event or context

Guy Sharon
Manager
Event-based Middleware & Solutions Group


Event-based Middleware & Solutions

phone : 
+972 4 8296587
mobile : 
+972 54 6976417
address : 
IBM R&D Labs in Israel, Haifa University Campus, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 
31905, Israel
email : 
guysh at il.ibm.com




From:   Moltchanov Boris <boris.moltchanov at telecomitalia.it>
To:     Guy Sharon/Haifa/IBM at IBMIL, "fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu" 
<fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu>
Date:   15/06/2011 14:20
Subject:        RE: [Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: 
data, context and events



?make is that not every data with time-stamp is necessarily an event? ? 
exactly, but the structure if of that of an event. The question whether it 
is event or not will depend not on the structure but on the context of 
that structure (data_types and names).
 
And no, it is still not a context ? we have to add to it EntityID (actor, 
subject, owner, object, whatever we call it) and we will get a context. 
 
Best Regards,
Boris
 
From: fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu [
mailto:fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu] On Behalf Of Guy Sharon
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 1:17 PM
To: fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu
Subject: Re: [Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: data, 
context and events
 
I think we are aligned - I agree with you - my point that I was trying to 
make is that not every data with time-stamp is necessarily an event 
e.g - you get the same piece of data multiple times during different 
time-stamps - this could be a repeated broadcast of a location of some 
device which has not changed over this time - there is no event here. 
But still you have context.

Guy Sharon 
Manager 
Event-based Middleware & Solutions Group 


Event-based Middleware & Solutions 

phone : 
+972 4 8296587 
mobile : 
+972 54 6976417 
address : 
IBM R&D Labs in Israel, Haifa University Campus, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 
31905, Israel 
email : 
guysh at il.ibm.com





From:        Moltchanov Boris <boris.moltchanov at telecomitalia.it> 
To:        Guy Sharon/Haifa/IBM at IBMIL, "fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu" 
<fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu> 
Date:        15/06/2011 13:28 
Subject:        RE: [Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: 
data,        context and events 




Hi, 
  
It depends what type of the data and data itself you put in the context. 
For example: 
  
The data = 5 (value) 
The event is The data + The meta-data -> event_type = ?rain conditions? 
(so there 5 is the rain (or raining) with the rate 5 (mm/hours); 
The context is The event+EntityID or The data+context_type+EntityID  and 
Entity ID=?Turin (city or location) (so there is rain of 5 force in the 
city Turin). 
  
I?m not discussing here about the types and values, I?m speaking about the 
data structure. 
  
Generally speaking, everything is a data (values) + metadata (types), 
however we may go deeper and define that adding the time-stamp and saying 
that the meta-data is an event-type we obtain an event, adding to that the 
EntityID we obtain a context. 
  
This vision is also in line with the OMA data structure definition, which 
goes even deeper, so it is not only saying that the data could have the 
meta-data but saying that also the data meta-data (context) could also 
have a nestled meta-data as context-type and so on. 
  
Please think about this, about the structure and have a look at the OMA 
specification. I will try to answer to Juanjo mails. 
  
Best Regards, 
Boris 
  
  
From: fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu [
mailto:fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu] On Behalf Of Guy Sharon
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 12:13 PM
To: fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu
Subject: Re: [Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: data, 
context and events 
  
Hi, 
OK but timestamp and scope name still dont make it an event - although the 
concepts have similar structural needs (context has a bit more) - it 
doesnt make sense to 'inherit' the structure. 
Although context can be interpreted from data or from events 

Guy Sharon 
Manager 
Event-based Middleware & Solutions Group 


Event-based Middleware & Solutions 

phone : 
+972 4 8296587 
mobile : 
+972 54 6976417 
address : 
IBM R&D Labs in Israel, Haifa University Campus, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 
31905, Israel 
email : 
guysh at il.ibm.com






From:        Moltchanov Boris <boris.moltchanov at telecomitalia.it> 
To:        Guy Sharon/Haifa/IBM at IBMIL 
Cc:        "fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu" <fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu> 
Date:        15/06/2011 12:59 
Subject:        RE: Tentative definition of basic concepts: data, context 
and events 
 





Hi Guy, 
 
No, entity only is not sufficient, the context must have the time-stamp 
(in order to check its real-timeness) and could have a type as well 
(context scope name). 
 
Best Regards, 
Boris 
 
From: Guy Sharon [mailto:GUYSH at il.ibm.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 6:38 PM
To: Moltchanov Boris
Cc: fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu
Subject: Tentative definition of basic concepts: data, context and events 
 
Boris - wouldn't it be also true to be able to obtain context by 
associating data with entity? 
i.e. No need to go through an event to get to context? 

So something like this 



Guy Sharon 
Manager 
Event-based Middleware & Solutions Group 


Event-based Middleware & Solutions 

phone : 
+972 4 8296587 
mobile : 
+972 54 6976417 
address : 
IBM R&D Labs in Israel, Haifa University Campus, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 
31905, Israel 
email : 
guysh at il.ibm.com






From:        Moltchanov Boris <boris.moltchanov at telecomitalia.it> 
To:        Juanjo Hierro <jhierro at tid.es>, "fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu" 
<fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu> 
Date:        14/06/2011 18:51 
Subject:        Re: [Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: 
data,        context and events 
Sent by:        fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu 

 



 

Dear Juajo, 

I would put the event definition before the Context. As I?ve said during 
the last conf-call, the data (including everything related to numbers and 
values) is a most generic case where only number (value) is the must. 
Everything else (meta-data, types, etc.) is optional. 

Then we would have an event as data + time when happened (the object 
referred by the data is implicit therefore could be omitted). 

Then adding the subject or object (referenced entity) we obtain the 
context, which inherit legacy properties of both the data (value) and 
event (when happened) as must and adding another must ? explicit object or 
subject (entity) making it the context. 

I hope I?ve succeeded to explain my point of view. 

Thank you. 

Best Regards, 
Boris 

From: fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu [
mailto:fiware-data-bounces at lists.fi-ware.eu] On Behalf Of Juanjo Hierro
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 12:58 PM
To: fiware-data at lists.fi-ware.eu
Subject: [Fiware-data] Tentative definition of basic concepts: data, 
context and events 

Dear all,

As you know, one of the action points from our last confcall had to do 
with providing a tentative definition of basic concepts in our chapter 
like data, context and event.

Please find the document I have produced on the matter at:

https://forge.fi-ware.eu/docman/view.php/9/141/Notes+and+Thoughts+on+definition+of+data-context-event.doc


Just in case you believe it would be more easy to run a discussion via 
email following this email, I have attached the text of this document 
below.

Hope you find it useful.  Your feedback is welcome.

Best regards,

-- Juanjo 
1.                Motivation 

This document intends to provide a precise description of some basic 
concepts like data, context and events in FI-WARE. These concepts are 
fundamental in the description of the Data/Context Management platform in 
FI-WARE and the way applications are developed based on that platform. 
Contents of this document will be considered as baseline for a post to 
publish in our Data/Context Management blog in www.fi-ware.eu (
http://data.fi-ware.eu) 
2.                Definition of Data 

Data refers to information that is produced, generated, collected or 
observed that may be of relevance for processing, further analysis or 
information and knowledge generation. Essentially refers to information 
relevant to applications. 
Data in FI-WARE has associated a data type and a value. FI-WARE will 
support a set of built-in basic data types like in most programming 
languages. Values linked to these basic data types supported in FI-WARE 
are referred as basic data values. So we have the notion of the integer 
basic data type and basic values like ?2?, ?7? or ?365? that belong to the 
integer basic data type. 
A data element refers to data whose value is defined as a sequence of one 
or more <name, type, value> triplets referred as data element attributes, 
where the type and value of each attribute is either  linked to a basic 
data type and a basic value or is linked to the data type and value of 
another data element. Note that each data element has an associated data 
type as any data in the system. This data type determines what concrete 
sequence of attributes characterizes that data element. 
There may be meta-data (also referred as semantic data) linked to 
attributes in a data element. However, existence of meta-data linked to a 
data element attribute is optional. 
Any data element has an entity in any FI-WARE Instance and, as such, it 
has an associated EntityId which universally and unequivocally indentifies 
the data element among the whole set of existing data elements. 
The basic concepts introduced so far are represented in Figure 1. 




Figure 1.    Basic Model for Data



A cornerstone concept in FI-WARE is that data elements are not tied to a 
specific format. They can be transferred as an XML document or in some 
sort of efficient binary representation and then be stored in a Relational 
Database or as entries in a noSQL data base like MongoDB. 



3.                Definition of Context 

Context in FI-WARE is represented through context elements. A context 
element is just a particular case of data element. However, there may be 
some attributes as well as meta-data associated to attributes that we may 
define as mandatory for any type of context element in FI-WARE. 
4.                Definition of Event 

An event is an occurrence within a particular system or domain; it is 
something that has happened, or is contemplated as having happened in that 
domain. The word event object is used to mean a programming entity that 
represents such an occurrence (event) in a computing system [EPIA]. Events 
are represented as event objects within computing systems to distinguish 
them from other types of objects and to perform operations on them, also 
known as event processing. It is common to refer to event objects simply 
as events. 
In FI-WARE, event objects are defined as a data element to which a number 
of standard event object properties (similar to a header) are associated. 
The concrete set of standard event object properties in FI-WARE is still 
to be defined but we may anticipate that one of these properties would be 
the time at which the event object was created.  The data element and the 
standard properties linked to an event are used to describe, as mentioned 
above, something that has happened or is contemplated as having happened 
in a given domain. 
A context event 
The relationship (or difference) of the terms data and event is 
continuously debated. One summary of the philosophical and technical 
aspects of such debates is included in the background section of [Grove 
06] with several references to the different opinions and definitions. For 
the purpose of FI-WARE and in specifically of the Context and Data 
Management Generic Enablers, we need to distinguish between the semantic 
level and the technical level of such a relationship that FI-WARE wishes 
to adopt, communicate, through its interfaces, and implement. Semantically 
speaking, the term data subsumes the term event meaning that some data can 
be semantically interpreted as events. From a technical perspective data 
is the way information is communicated in FI-WARE and it needs to be 
explicitly or implicitly identified as an event object and vice versa for 
processing the data as event. 


 


 




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