4store – A RDF Data Storage Database System

Yet another Database storage system named 4store was designed by Steve Harris for use as technical infrastructure for a company named Garlik.

4store is a RDF data storage database and query engine, which was primarily Garlik for three years now. But the Company has chosen to make it available for other enterprises and the general public as well. Even though the product has been three years in the running it has gained renown for being powerfully built.Products like this usually take years to establish a good reputation but 4store has already been used in several projects. (It has been used in project like Data Patrol which offers users protection from identity theft and fraud, Open PSI, eRDf which is the runner up for the 2009 Billion triples challenge, Market Blended Insight used to enhance the communication in the UK business to business scene and also to provide comprehensive details about the Business scenario in the UK.)

4store does not provide many features over the RDF storage or SPARQL but it offers the most secure operation that is not a feature found in most other RDF storage systems. Measures have been taken to make sure that 4store does not make it susceptible to attacks. It has a performance rate of 120 kT/s. Query time for simple queries occur in milliseconds. It is compatible on Linux platforms alone but has been found to work on single Mac OS X machines as well, even then, Its working depends on the Avahi multicast DNS library, which is not easily available to Mac OS. It runs on UNIX-like OS. It has been built to handle data loads of 1GT and higher, if stored on small clusters but can handle small loads on a single server as well. The original build up was ideal for holding 1 billion triples but it has been found to work well on scales of upto 10 billion triples. It is made available to download by the general public under the GNU general public license, version 3.

GO4 4store