Linked Data Query Processing Strategies

Recently, processing of queries on linked data has gained attention. We identify and systematically discuss three main strategies: a bottom-up strategy that discovers new sources during query processing by following links between sources, a top-down strategy that relies on complete knowledge about the sources to select and process relevant sources, and a mixed strategy that assumes some incomplete knowledge and discovers new sources at run-time. To exploit knowledge discovered at run-time, we propose an additional step, explicitly scheduled during query processing, called correct source ranking. Additionally, we propose the adoption of stream-based query processing to deal with the unpredictable nature of data access in the distributed Linked Data environment. In experiments, we show that our implementation of the mixed strategy leads to early reporting of results and thus, more responsive query processing, while not requiring complete knowledge.