Akara is...pampered chef for data

No, really, Akara is...an integration platform for data and services on the Web.

Akara is an open-source (Apache2 license) Web framework specialized for RESTful data services, especially involving XML and other semi-structured formats. You express data models and create transforms based on these data models, plugging required inputs and outputs (XML, JSON, CSV, Atom, etc.) together into pipelines which implement the desired services. You then make these services available on the Web using simple wrappers. The wrappers are based on REST concepts and among other things make it easy to discover and reuse the services, and to connect them to local and remote systems using Web triggers (AKA Web hooks).

Akara simplifies extract-transform-load (ETL), data-driven integration of systems, and makes it easy to wrap Web sites and services, turning tag soup and painful APIs into clean, RESTful end-points.

For the most part Akara is enabling technology for developers and technical users. Others will generally gain the benefits of Akara through simplified data feeds to end-user sites based on more general-purpose frameworks such as Pinax. (See Zepheira Freemix for one example of this combination).

For more of an introduction, please see this presentation from Balisage (See also: Akara/Balisage) or this other from http://wiki.python.org/moin/FrontRangePythoneersUc09.

Or just go ahead and get started : Akara/Quick_start

Discuss Akara on the Akara mailing list.

There are a couple of persistent links for Akara: http://purl.org/xml3k/akara and http://x.ogbuji.net/akara (both of which point to this page, for now)

Components

Akara is an umbrella project that includes Amara 2.0 (Amara2) as a layer for core XML processing and data utilities. It then provides a layer of wrappers that mount functions as simple REST end-points.

Development

See: Akara/Developer_notes

There is a mailing list for developers as well.

Background

Akara is a re-write of the 4Suite project. The core XML component of 4Suite has become Amara, and what was a full-blown Web framework in 4Suite has been pared down to a quick way to wrap functions using Akara as RESTful Web services.

The original port from 4Suite to Akara was jointly sponsored by Cleveland Clinic, and Zepheira. Zepheira's core business is professional services creating semantic annotation features for traditional enterprise and Web apps. What that usually means in practice is incorporating and processing data from diverse sources, and creating mappings and data models that are easy top enhance using semi-formal human annotations. Usually what convinces potential clients is a demonstration, using Akara, of effective data models and transforms (and simple dashboards for accessing these) within 30 minutes or so upon a first meeting.

Used in projects for US Library of Congress, Eli Lilly, Quintiles Transnational, Cleveland Clinic, Thomson/Reuters FindLaw, Elsevier, internal usage at Zepheira, and much more.

etc.

Akara (last edited 2009-11-08 15:02:30 by UcheOgbuji)