6.0 RELEASE PLAN AND OBJECTIVES
TopBraid EDG version 6.0 has many exciting improvements to the user experience. We have unified the navigation making it simple to switch context with one click. The tabular editor used in many of the EDG collections has been rewritten to be search driven, highly customizable and intuitive. Version 6.0 also has significant technology additions with support for GraphQL and the addition of a single shared TDB knowledge graph repository.
TopQuadrant has incorporated TopBraid EVN into our flagship product TopBraid Enterprise Data Governance (TopBraid EDG) as the standard Vocabulary Management package. With this, EVN will not be available with version 6.0. EVN users will instead use EDG-VM package. The user interface is nearly identical and vocabulary creation, management and maintenance functions are exactly the same in both products. EDG, as a more advanced product offers valuable additional capabilities such as “Search the EDG” a global search to improve “findability” of vocabulary assets managed within TopBraid EDG.
KEY IMPROVEMENTS OF 6.0
Enterprise Data Governance (EDG)
- GraphQL engine in addition to SPARQL
- TopBraid EDG will include a GraphQL endpoint. It will automatically generate GraphQL schemas from SHACL and it will automatically generate SHACL from GraphQL schemas, making it possible to use GraphQL schemas as a compact language for SHACL. Data from external Graph QL endpoints will be auto-converted to RDF. GraphQL interfaces will be used internally in TopBraid EDG to deliver JSON to its user interfaces, as well as be available for use of external systems.
- For details on this capability, see https://archive.topquadrant.com/technology/graphql/.
- Shared TDB as a knowledge graph repository
- In addition to already existing storage options, users will be able to select a “shared TDB” options. With it, all asset collections governed by TopBraid EDG will be stored as named graphs in a single shared Apache Jena TDB database. Compared to “one TDB database per graph” option, this option reduces the number of open files, simplifies database back up and management and enables a more effective use of TDB indexes.
- Improved User Experience through efficient user navigation
- 6.0 will simplify navigation between editing applications (“editors”) and other operations on the asset collections through the unified menu available on the editing pages and pages for other operations (e.g., Import or Manage).
- Menu options for production and working copies/workflows will be unified
- Upgraded tabular editor will integrate search and column selection directly into the tabular display, making it unnecessary for a user to bring up a separate search panel
- As the role of the governance areas is becoming more important in TopBraid EDG, a new home page widget will shows all user’s governance areas and the roles they play in each, making it easier to navigate to the “per governance area” grouping of assets that is relevant to a given user.
- “Search the EDG” results pages will include additional direct links to relevant impact and lineage diagrams.
- One click navigation options will be added for the Users pages, Governance Roles pages.
- Direct clickthroughs will become available from the view-only display of the selected assets (such as the info views in the diagrams or in the Problems and Suggestions report) to the editable page for the asset.
- User selectable rules and transformations for data acquisition and profiling
- New “Transformation” menu option will be available to view and execute transformation rules included in the asset collection. When used, this action will change the data by adding information generated by the rules. It is different from the Problems and Suggestions report which also provides a way to modify data, but in a more interactive way – as suggestions that a user may agree or disagree with.
- Automated generation of crosswalks across asset collections
- TopBraid EDG will auto-generate crosswalks. The probability of the match will be displayed. Users will be able to filter suggested mappings up and down based on the probability and elect to apply them individually or as a group (e.g., top matches).
- Related to this feature, the crosswalks editor will be enhanced to “on click” bring up a full form for the entities being mapped.
- LineageGram visualization from/to Business Terms, Data Elements, Applications Business Activities and Areas, Policies and Regulations
- 6.0 will deliver many enhancements to the LineageGram component. These include:
- Support for logical and physical data flows in addition to the previously available support for pipelines
- Drill down to the derivation maps
- Ability to see impact (downstream dependencies) and lineage (upstream dependencies)
- Availability of the impact and lineage displays for more asset types (as listed in the heading)
- Integration with forms for contextual information editing
- User configurable metrics dashboards with historic trending
- 6.0 will deliver the infrastructure for storing “point in time” metrics (making it possible to use these in historic trend analysis) and for metric monitoring. 6.1 will deliver enhanced capabilities for metric configuration and periodic scheduling of metric calculation.
- Governance roles per Asset
- In addition to the previously available support for the “per asset collection” and “per governance area” roles, users will now be able to specify governance roles for individual assets. These roles will be honored and enforced in the workflow processing.
- Automated “graph includes” based on the governance areas
- TopBraid EDG users can define modular assemblies of related graphs by selecting what graphs (assets collections) to include in each other. In 6.0 TopBraid EDG will manage graph inclusion (for users who elect to do so) based on the governance areas. All graphs belonging to the same area will automatically include each other.
Additional Enhancements:
- Page to view/edit namespaces and their prefixes
- Improved Internationalization including support for multiple languages in auto-complete and non-roman characters in collection names
- Options to include or remove collections in Search the EDG upon create and on Manage tab for collections. Also, configuration option in Administration for index interval
- Full-page resource editor now includes a section to view and edit the (Turtle) source code when enabled by an Administrator
- Added export RDF option to produce TriG (with all imports)
- Hierarchy tree now has an option to hide roots without children
- New option to record triple counts only instead of full change history
- New option to automatically archive working copies on commit
- New clone button in EDG tabular editor
- Moved working copy archive files from “Repositories” sub folder to its own project folder
- Plus, various improvements for a clearer more unified interface experience
Technology Upgrades:
- Upgrade to Apache Jena 3.7.0
- Update Jackson dependencies to 2.9.5 to address Jackson CVE-2018-7489
Deprecated Features
- In version 5.3, EDG Explorer replaced the previous Vocabulary Explorer. With version 6.1, Vocabulary Explorer will be removed.
- With version 6.1, Job Titles will be removed from the Governance Model. Organizations can be directly added to a subject area instead.
Change Log
changes-6.0.0.txt
changes-6.0.1.txt
Migration Steps
Mon Aug 29 2022 19:17:23 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
