IEEE Seventh International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Information Systems

1. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1
Vera G. Meister, Jonas Jetschni
Towards a Semantic Information System
for IT Services
IEEE Seventh International Conference on
Intelligent Computing and Information Systems,

2. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 22
 Initial Situation and Requirements
 Ontology Engineering
 IT Service Catalog Ontology
 Prototypical Application Development
 Further Work
Agenda
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Web
Development
Semantic
Web
Technologies
IT Service
Catalog

3. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 33
• in our university
 home-grown
 heterogeneous
 primarily focused on technical aspects
 rather reactive than proactive
• similar situation in a majority of public organizations
• lack of transparency and guidance for
 users
 IT staff
 executives
Initial Situation
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12

4. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 44
IT Management Structure
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
NOG
Administration
CIO Panel
Lab Services
DTE
Lab Services
DCS
Lab Services
DBM
Head Head
Library
Data Center
ChancellorPresident
CIMC
Center X
Project Y

5. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 55
Use Cases and Requirements
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
want to have guidance on public IT services at university
 e. g. as prospect students, as potential project partners of the
university etc.
need information about a specific IT service
 e. g. about access conditions, service options, support offerings,
operational processes etc.
aim on central coordination and standardization of services
 e. g. for efficient appointment of scarce resources, for optimal
support for IT management processes etc.
need reliable data about costs and expenses of IT services
 e. g. for budget planning, for implementing an internal transfer
pricing system for shared IT services etc.

6. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 66
Development Process
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Ontology
Engineering
PrototypingEvaluation

7. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 77
Ontology Engineering
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Reuse of standard concepts, relations and attributes
Design Principle
rdfEditor, Protégé, WebProtégé
Tools
Domain knowledge and competency questions
Knowledge

8. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 88
 Who acts in a service? Is that a person, an organization, or a role?
 Are there relations between those actors?
 In which relation (user, provider, customer, or supporter) does someone
act in a service?
 Which entities (IT assets, documents) are associated with a service?
 Are there relations between one service and others?
 How can a service be evaluated in terms of priority and criticality?
Competency Questions
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12

9. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 99
IT Service Catalog (itcat) Ontology
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Agent
Service
schema:agent
Document
Organi-
zation
Person
Role
Service
Category
Catalog
Category
Subject
Category
Life Cycle
Stage
itcat:inCategory
IT Asset
Priority
Entity
Criticality
Qualitative
Value
itcat:hasStage
itcat:usableWith foaf:page
itcat:hasPriority
itcat:hasCriticality
schema:member
schema:employee
• Planning
• Implementation
• Operation
• In Relief
• Off
• Communication
• Business Adm.
• Information
• Infrastructure
• Library
• Network
• Teaching Platf.
• Miscellaneous
• Business
• Infrastructure
• Operational
• Public
schema:isRelatedTo

10. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1010
Phases in Application Development
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Proof of concept
Phase 1
Functional prototype
Phase 2
Advanced software design
Phase 3

11. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1111
System Design of the Prototype
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Business Logic
PHP
Web Interface
HTML5 · CSS3 · JS
REST
Triple Store
Apache Jena Fuseki Server
SPARQL 1.1 Endpoint
StorageTierApplicationTierPresentationTier

12. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1212
Future System Design
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
RDF/Turtle
JSON-LD
Web Application
HTML5 · CSS3 · JS
REST API
PHP
REST Client
Triple Store
SPARQL 1.1 Endpoint
JSON
REST Client
App
REST Client
App
Document Database
Templates · Documents
Connector
StorageTierApplicationTierPresentationTier
REST
Semantic Server
Reasoning · Search · Parsing
...

13. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1313
Development of SPARQL Queries
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
As easy as possible.
Rule 1
As comprehensive
as possible.
Rule 2
As general as possible.
Rule 3
Specify the target graph pattern and
translate it into SPARQL.
2
Define the question in natural language.1
Add filters, constraints, or aggregations.3
Specify filters for language(s)
and/or data types.
4
Check, evaluate, and modify the results.5

14. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1414
IT Service Catalog
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12

15. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1515
Appreciated by Evaluators
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Chancellor
Professor
Head of Lab
Services
Controller
Student
Reports allow better control of the organization,
e. g. in terms of review of contracts with extern providers.
The tool may be very helpful during on boarding.
We could implement a ticket system for all users.
We could check the involvement of staff into IT services and
allocate costs according to the cost-by-cause principle.
It‘s convenient to have all services for students in one place.

16. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 1616
Further Work
Meister, Jetschni: Towards a Semantic Information System for IT Services 2015-12-12
Functional
enhancements
Information system as single-point of truth
Deployment in the federal state of Brandenburg
Advanced
software design
Ontology
upgrading
Login and target-group-specifics
Visualisation of relations
Faceted search and filtering
Connection to other systems
e.g. monitoring, CMS, and DMS
Substantial enhancement of IT
management in the public sector
1
2
3

17. International Symposium on Decision Support Systems • Cairo • December 2015 17
Thank you for your attention
Vera G. Meister, Jonas Jetschni