Introduction to CM-Well¶
What is CM-Well?¶
CM-Well is a writable Linked Data repository, which can be used to model data from various datasets.
CM-Well (Content Matrix Well) adheres to Open Data principles, meaning that its data is in a standard, machine-readable format. The CM-Well code is Open Source and available at GitHub.
CM-Well's data is represented as a graph database, which means that it contains both entities and relationships between pairs of entities. For instance, it contains facts such as "CompanyA is a subsidiary of CompanyB", or "PersonX works at CompanyA". Conceptually, a graph database is a structure composed of nodes representing entities, and directed arrows representing relationships among them. See the image below for an example.
Platform for Data Modeling¶
CM-Well can be used to build your own linked data repository. In addition to API calls for reading CM-Well information, there are calls for creating new entries and connections.
For example, you could create a data repository describing countries, their capitals, continents and currencies. For each of these entities, you would create a corresponding entity in CM-Well, with appropriate relationships between them (e.g. "Paris" - "is capital of" - "France").
Why Should I Use CM-Well?¶
CM-Well has many advantages and convenient features, including:
- Easy-to-use Linked Data sharing as a service.
- Direct access to entity info via URI.
- Does not require installation.
- Does not require downloading large files and subsequent processing and database insertion.
- Contains up-to-the-minute current info, as well as all historical versions of entities.
- Supports retrieval, querying and filtering of content at different levels of granularity - from a single entity, to a stream of updates, to the entire repository.
- Enables navigation among related entities via the links returned within an entity's info.
- Allows you to create your own data repository.
- As opposed to standard triple-stores that focus only on reading relatively static data, CM-Well is specifically designed to handle data that is constantly updated. This includes features such as convenient upload, handling historical versions, subscribing to real-time updates, and more.
Getting Started with CM-Well¶
Here are some more topics to help you get started with CM-Well: