Massive Graph Management for the Web and Web 2.0

The problem of efficiently managing massive datasets has gained increasing attention due to the availability of a plethora of data from various sources, such as the Web. Moreover, Web 2.0 applications seem to be one of the most fruitful sources of information as they have attracted the interest of a large number of users that are eager to contribute to the creation of new data, available online. Several Web 2.0 applications incorporate

Social Tagging

features, allowing users to upload and tag sets of online resources. This activity produces massive amounts of data on a daily basis, which can be represented by a

tripartite graph

structure that connects users, resources and tags. The analysis of

Social Tagging Systems

(STS) emerges as a promising research field, enabling the identification of common patterns in the behavior of users, or the identification of communities of semantically related tags and resources, and much more. The massive size of STS datasets dictates the necessity for a robust underlying infrastructure to be used for their storage and access.

This chapter contains a survey of existing solutions to the problem of storing and managing massive graph data focusing particularly on the implications that the underlying technologies of such frameworks have on the support/operation of Web 2.0 applications using them as back-end storage solutions, as well as on the efficient execution of web mining tasks. Considering the category of STS as an example of Web 2.0 applications, the requirements that are posed for the management of STS data are thoroughly discussed. On the basis of these requirements three frameworks have been developed, using state-of-the-art technologies as backbones. The results of benchmarks conducted on the developed frameworks are presented and discussed.