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Kowari FAQ
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What is Kowari?
KowariTM is an Open Source, massively scalable, transaction-safe, purpose-built database for the storage and retrieval of metadata.
Much like a relational database, one stores information in Kowari and retrieves it via a query language. Unlike a relational database, Kowari is optimized for the storage and retrieval of many short statements (in the form of subject-predicate-object, like "Kowari is fun" or "Kowari imports RDF"). Kowari is not based on a relational database due to the large numbers of table joins encountered by relational systems when dealing with metadata. Instead, Kowari is a completely new database optimized for metadata management.
Tucana TechnologiesTM also manufactures the Tucana Knowledge ServerTM (TKSTM), a feature rich enterprise-class commercial product based partially on Kowari. See www.tucanatech.com for more details and to request an evaluation version of TKS.
Available Versions
A complete version of Kowari is available as a source download. This version requires knowledge of JavaTM development to build. A smaller version containing only core components is also available - Kowari LiteTM. More information is available below.
Kowari Lite
Kowari 1.0.2 introduces a new "lite" version. This is available as a binary download below. Kowari Lite is not a complete Kowari distribution - it only includes core components - nor is it a binary distribution in the conventional sense. Kowari Lite is available in binary format only and is aimed at developers wanting a smaller footprint datastore without additional functionality.
Kowari Lite includes the core APIs - iTQL, RDQL, JRDF, Jena, CLI, etc. - but does not include additional tools such as Descriptors or SOAP bindings. Removing these components from the distribution reduces the file size dramatically.
Is Kowari secure?
The commercial version of Kowari by Tucana Technologies provides both transport layer security (SSL/TLS), and store level authentication and authorization. The open source release of Kowari contains no security infrastructure.
Operating systems
Kowari will run on operating systems that support Java 1.4 and above. It has been tested for use on SunTM SolarisTM, Debian and RedHat versions of Linux®, and Microsoft® Windows NT® and Windows® 2000 and XP. Kowari only runs on Mac OS® 10.2 or higher.
Hardware
Kowari may be deployed on standard personal computers based on a 32-bit architecture (e.g. Intel® Pentium® II or III processors and 64 MB of memory) or midrange servers utilizing 32 or 64-bit architectures (e.g. Sun EnterpriseTM, CobaltTM or NetraTM range of servers). Kowari can explicitly take advantage of 64-bit architectures when they are available to it.
Technologies
Kowari is implemented in the Java programming language and is 100% Java. It depends on standard Java packages available from Sun MicrosystemsTM. Kowari also includes Java code from other projects. Details may be found on the Legal page.
Relational databases
Kowari is not implemented on top of a relation database such as an Oracle® database or Microsoft SQL Server. It is a new type of database, optimized from the ground up for the storage and management of metadata. More information can be found on the Overview page.
General purpose databases may hold any type of data. Metadata, on the other hand, is held in a particular form of short subject-predicate-object statements. By optimizing Kowari for this type of data, great efficiencies may be realized. Relational databases are excellent for storing data where the schema is well defined and stable and the type of queries are unlikely to change. Data warehouses attempt to work around these limitations by indexing all data, but they are expensive and used for non-transactional operations. Large metadata stores must be able to have full transactional capabilities on rapidly changing data structures.
Object databases create an object for each metadata statement, resulting in very large memory requirements and slow processing. Metadata stores often hold huge numbers of small metadata statements, making them particularly unsuited to OO databases.
XML databases store hierarchical and ordered data; metadata is neither. Most vendors of XML databases base their product on OO or relational databases and hence suffer some of the same problems.
Kowari and RDF
Kowari implements many of the W3C's Semantic Web concepts (see http://www.w3c.org/2001/sw and http://www.w3.org/RDF/ for more details). Kowari models hold metadata in the form of short subject-predicate-object statements, much like the W3C's Resource Description Framework (RDF) standard. Metadata may be imported into or exported from Kowari in RDF or N3 form.
Applications built with Kowari
Kowari has been used as the basis for several commercial activities including data mining activities and litigation support services.
Building applications with Kowari
Developers can use, extend or modify Kowari components via a wide range of APIs. Tucana Technologies provides resources outlining the many ways developers can use Kowari for their own purposes.
Available APIs
- Jena
- JRDF
- Interactive user (command line) shell
- Web-based query interface
- SOAP
- iTQL JavaBeanTM
- Descriptors (transform metadata to XML, HTML, etc. using XSLT)
Downloading
Information on downloading Kowari in source form can be found on the Downloads page. Kowari binaries are not currently available.
Installation
Information on installing Kowari is available in the documentation.
Running Kowari
More information on running Kowari will be available shortly.
What is a Kowari?
The kowari is a small carnivorous marsupial weighing 70 - 137 g (2.5 - 4.9 oz). It is found in sparse populations in gibber deserts and dry grassland in Australia. The kowari's diet consists of insects, arachnids, and probably small vertebrates such as birds, rodents, and lizards. It does not need to drink water - it gets all of the moisture it needs from its food. It may shelter in the burrow of another mammal or dig its own, and both sexes construct a nest of soft materials in the burrow. The kowari is primarily terrestrial, but climbs well. Kowaris are thought to live in small colonies in burrow complexes.
Source: http://www.animalinfo.org/species/dasybyrn.htm.
A picture can be found here (source: http://www.scarysquirrel.org/vacation/australia/).
How do I pronounce it?
Kowari is pronounced in three syllables - ko-warr-ree; ko - as in "go", war - as in "car", ri - as in "ree". It is not pronounced "cowrie", like the shell.
Latest News
Kowari 1.1.0 Pre-release 1 Released
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