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Talis platform

The Talis (SaaS) Platform weaves Data with the Web to create a highly available and adaptable environment for data sharing. Supporting data publishers and developers, the Platform provides:
  1. Dedicated storage for both structured and unstructured data.
  2. Query interfaces to enable data exploration and manipulation.
  3. Cloud-based data hosting to reduce hardware and startup costs.
  4. Future-proofing for data and applications, through the latest industry standards.

For application developers The Talis Platform offers a cloud-based data repository that provides:

  1. A simple, consistent web API for storing, managing and retrieving both structured and unstructured data.
  2. Flexible, schema-free metadata that allows applications to be easily evolved.
  3. A range of data access and query options enabling easy integration into both new and existing applications.
  4. Access control options to support hosting of both public and private data.
  5. A data hosting solution that is founded on open internet standards and web architectural best practices.
  6. Software as a Service, enabling rapid development with zero deployment costs.
  7. Low, even free, utility based pricing for services and hosting allowing costs to grow with usage.
  8. A highly available and scalable infrastructure to ensure that the repository grows in line with your applications needs.

Access Control

A key goal of the Talis Platform is to support the spread of public, open data on the Web. This means that by default every Platform Store is world-readable: all of the core data access, search and augmentation features are available for public use. But only the owner of that Platform Store has the rights to update the data or configuration. So if you want to use the Platform as a means of disseminating open data then the default configuration will be all that you need.

However Talis recognises that some data must stay private, whether that is for commercial or security reasons. Therefore each Platform Store can be configured with its own set of access control rules that limit who can access the data it contains, and what features they can use. These access control rules can also be applied to specific graphs within a Platform Store, allowing part of a hosted data set to be publically accessible and part to be private. This allows, e.g. personal user data, or commercially sensitive information to be kept private, whilst still allowing some data to be freely shared with others.

In short the Platform allows:

  1. By default, freely available data access and search for anonymous users.
  2. Restricted access to data and configuration updates to authorised users.
  3. A role based access control mechanism for limiting use of specific features to only authorised users.
  4. Private, secure data hosting with all access restricted to one or more authorised users.
  5. Partitioning a data set into sub-graphs that have their own access management rules.

Cost

Firstly, all basic data retrieval operations, including searches and augmentation requests are available at no charge to either the Platform owner or the user. This means that, assuming that the data owner has not restricted access to their data, that anyone can retrieve, perform simple keyword or facetted searches, or perform RSS feed augmentation, over any data stored in the Platform.

Secondly, to support the creation and dissemination of public domain data, the Talis Connected Commons programme allows data to be published onto the Platform at no cost, assuming that data is licensed under one of several public domain licenses. These Platform Stores will also have freely available SPARQL endpoints, allowing for richer forms of data access.

Finally, Talis provides free developer access to the Platform for the purposes of experimentation and prototyping. These developer accounts provide free access to all Platform features for at least 3 months, and longer at Talis's discretion.

All other uses of the Platform are covered by a commercial agreement. As a SaaS based solution, use of the Platform is charged under a simple utility model that includes:
  1. A fee for data hosting based on a fixed price per Million triples hosted.
  2. A fixed fee and ongoing per-request usage fees for additional value-added services such as access control (for private data) and SPARQL endpoints.