Real Time Open Data (RTOD) is a middleware that provides access to content from different sources though a single access point.
Most current organizations have a heterogeneity of systems, products and back-ends which hold information that is susceptible to be published in Open Data / Open Government Portals. These systems store all the information in different structures using their own metadata, structural/ordering rules, architecture and access mechanisms.
Therefore, the main problem that solves RTOD is the automated extraction of content from different institutional back-ends to incorporate them, in an automated way, to an open data catalog..
Automated content updates
Currently RTOD offers different alternatives for the extraction and automated updating of content through drivers.
Drivers
RTOD drivers are modules that establish communication between the RTOD server and content provider systems (back-ends). These modules are essential in the RTOD architecture as they are in charge of the extraction and update of information. Each driver can access a different content provider system. These are the drivers that are available at the moment:
- SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access)
- REST API (XML/JSON)
- FIWARE (Orion Context Broker)
- Binary files (e.g. images)
- CSV files
Semantic web
Another of the main features of RTOD is its ability to add semantics to the content extracted from the providers, that is, RTOD is able to offer the content of the providers in formats with semantic load such as RDF/XML, Turtle or N3 for its subsequent storage in a Triplestore. It also allows to enable a SPARQL end-point for the content query.
Integration with the Smart City Platform (FIWARE)
OGoov integrates with the Smart City Platform through its RTOD component and its drivers that provide the necessary tools to obtain the information handled by the platform. It is possible to expose as open data both the snapshot of the real-time data served by Orion Context Broker and the historical data generated by Cygnus (tool for connecting Orion Context Broker with several data storages, HDFS and STH included, in order to create context data historics).
Content reuse
Finally, RTOD also provides a REST API for reusers. This API offers nine different serializations: XML, RDF/XML, N3, TURTLE, JSON-LD, HTML, JSON, CSV and ATOM.