The Case for a Structured Approach to Managing Unstructured Data

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a structured approach to managing unstructured data, highlighting its importance and potential to leverage lessons from relational data management to improve handling of non-relational data.

Contribution

It proposes a structured framework for unstructured data management inspired by relational data lessons, aiming to prevent industry players from dominating this space.

Findings

Structured approach can enhance unstructured data management

Lessons from relational data are applicable to unstructured data

Potential to influence management of other non-relational data types

Abstract

The challenge of managing unstructured data represents perhaps the largest data management opportunity for our community since managing relational data. And yet we are risking letting this opportunity go by, ceding the playing field to other players, ranging from communities such as AI, KDD, IR, Web, and Semantic Web, to industrial players such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. In this essay we explore what we can do to improve upon this situation. Drawing on the lessons learned while managing relational data, we outline a structured approach to managing unstructured data. We conclude by discussing the potential implications of this approach to managing other kinds of non-relational data, and to the identify of our field.