Non-relational data management is emerging as a critical need for the new data economy based on large, distributed, heterogeneous, and complexly structured data sets. This new data management paradigm also provides an opportunity for research results to impact young innovative companies working on new RDF and graph data management technologies to start playing a significant role in this new data economy.
Standards and benchmarking are two of the most important factors for the development of new information technology, yet there is still no comprehensive suite of benchmarks and benchmarking practices for RDF and graph databases, nor is there an authority for setting benchmark definitions and auditing official results. Without them, the future development and uptake of these technologies is at risk by not providing industry with clear, user-driven targets for performance and functionality.
The goal of the Linked Data Benchmark Council (LDBC) project is to create the first comprehensive suite of open, fair and vendor-neutral benchmarks for RDF/graph databases together with the LDBC foundation which will define processes for obtaining, auditing and publishing results. The core scientific innovation of LDBC is therefore to define meaningful benchmarks derived from a combination of actual usage scenarios combined with the technical insight of top database systems researchers and architects in the choke points of current technology. LDBC will bring together a broad community of researchers and RDF and graph database vendors to establish an independent authority, the LDBC foundation, responsible for specifying benchmarks, benchmarking procedures and verifying/publishing results. The forum created will become a long-surviving, industry supported association similar to the TPC. Vendors and user organisations will participate in order to influence benchmark design and to make use of the obvious marketing opportunities.