iMeMex: A Platform for Personal Dataspace Management

dbis.ethz.ch | iMeMex.org Desktop computers provide thousands of different applications that query and store data in hundreds of thousands of files of differ-ent formats. Those files are stored in the local filesystem and also in a number of remote data sources, such as network shares or as attachements to emails. To handle this heterogeneous and dis-tributed mix of personal information, data processing logic is re-invented inside each application. This results in an unfortunate situation: most advanced data management functionality, such as complex queries, backup and recovery, versioning, provenance tracking, among others, is (at least partially) performed by end-users in tedious, manual tasks. To solve these problems we propose a software platform named iMeMex that brings physical and logi-cal data independence to the desktop, freeing users from low-level data management considerations. Unlike in relational DBMSes, our platform does not assume full control of the data, but rather manages the complex dataspace [11] of one’s personal information. We discuss several research challenges encountered building such a platform: (i) the definition of a unified data model that allows the integration of information in distinct representations and locations without requiring semantic data integration, (ii) the development of a new search&query language over this data model along with algo-rithms for the efficient processing of complex queries and (iii) the need for soft update and recoverability techniques to provide dura-bility and consistency of personal information. 1