358 Big Data Computing
approach, the web is being perceived as “an immense database that can
be mined to link to data, rather than document-based resources” (Mitchell
and Wilson 2012, p. 11). This is especially relevant in environments that
are characterized by heterogeneous data formats and sources that are
spread among various locations and time zones. By building on Semantic
Web standards, the Linked Data approach offers signicant benets com-
pared to conventional data integration approaches. These are according to
Auer (2011):
• De-referencability. IRIs are not just used for identifying entities, but
since they can be used in the same way as URLs, they also enable
locating and retrieving resources describing and representing these ...