S EMANTICA A N ET C ENTRIC ™ A PPROACH TO A NALYSIS A N O VERVIEW AND C OMPARISON OF THE S EMANTICA A NALYSIS S OFTWARE P LATFORM
B ACKGROUND Focus Africa is a private risk management company, providing risk management services to multinational companies, NGOs and private clients operating throughout Africa and the Middle- East. Focus-Africa provides the following types of services: • Country Risk Management • Compliance • Specialised Security Services 2
E XPERIENCE WITH A NALYSIS P LATFORMS Through various historic and ongoing projects and operations, Focus-Africa has directly and indirectly used and made use of many analysis software platforms, for example: • Online Intelligence • IBM i2 Analyst’s Notebook • SAS MEMEX • Palantir Focus-Africa has no special allegiance to any platform, but rather looks for the platform that provides the most operational and strategic value for itself, its partners and its clients. 3
T HE V ALUE OF A NALYSIS 4
T HE V ALUE OF A NALYSIS Personal Relationships Organizational Relationships Technical Processes/Flows Transportation Networks Currency/Financial Transfers Electronic Connectivity/ Information Flows 5
W HAT IS S EMANTICA Semantica is a holistic and flexible intelligence analysis tool, developed and maintained by Semantic Research Inc. • San Diego, California USA company, formed in 2001 – Business office in Arlington, Virginia USA • Semantica evolved from an education-oriented tool – 27 year pedigree: 17 in Education; 10 in Intelligence – Initial application was for the construction and transfer of expertise – Based on the application of Semantic Network Theory • Evolved into NetCentric Intelligence analytical environment 6
G ETTING K NOWLEDGE O UT OF B IG D ATA THE LAST METER: Semantica provides the human interface to understand Big Data in context 7
K EY F EATURES OF S EMANTICA 1. Compatibility – can connect with virtually any data source 2. Open API - enable customer to interface other solutions with our framework 3. Import / Export data - import and export almost any type of local or external data 4. Flexibility - ontology flexibility allows subject matter experts to easily extend the ontology, on the fly, as new information is uncovered; included developer kit allows customer to customize Semantica 5. Workflows - Workflows automate repetitive tasks, increasing time available for analysis 6. Provenance (Sourcing) - application-wide capture of source, marking, and confidence 7. Multiple Views • Traditional Link Chart View – Multiple variations of traditional Link Charts • Card View – A view that displays semantic network content in a convenient and user- friendly, tabular layout – an easily customizable virtual dossier • Geospatial View - visualization providing advanced semantic network overlay and timeline capability 8
S EMANTICA – I NTELLIGENCE P ROCESS 1 2 3 4 Define Enhance Access and Fuse Produce Actionable Meaningful: Understanding Key Data Sources Knowledge - Entities - Pattern Matching - Relationships - Visualizations - Templates - Standard Queries Organization Data Semantica Data Model User Data & Persistent External Knowledge Data Repository 9
S EMANTICA – C OMPETITIVE A DVANTAGES 1. Connectivity • Connect, import, and map information from many external data sources without additional tools • Semantica includes the ability to connect to an almost infinite number of sources of almost any type with built-in ETL tools • Federate searches from the desktop to any number of internal and external sources and to export in industry standard formats 2. Graph Back-End Design (RDF Triple Store) • Information is stored as entities and relationships, providing true context to vast quantities of data 3. Extendibility (future friendly) • Wizard Walkthroughs • Open Standards • ODBC/JDBC 4. Customisable (custom ontology without technical support) 10
S EMANTICA – C OMPETITIVE A DVANTAGES 11
S EMANTICA – C OMPARISON ( EXAMPLE ) 12
S EMANTICA – C OMPARISON ( EXAMPLE ) 13
S EMANTICA – I NTELLIGENCE V ALUE C HAIN 14
S EMANTICA – C ONNECTIVITY Examples of just some of the datasets that Semantica can connect to: • Private and Public Sources • Structured • – Internet SQL (multiple) – – Built-in web parser CSV, Excel • – Commercial Services JSON, XML – • LexisNexis Accurint Unstructured – – Thomson Reuters Word/PDF Documents • – Social Media Webpages – – Twitter Large-Scale Indexed Search – • Facebook Cyber Sources – – LinkedIn Packet Capture – – Instagram Email Inboxes – – YouTube Website Surveying • • Mobile Forensics Other Applications – – Lantern IBM i2, Palantir – – Cellebrite ESRI/Google Earth – Penlink 15
S EMANTICA – D ATA C APTURE < Document View Form Entry > < Import Manager 16
S EMANTICA – D ATA U NDERSTANDING < Network View Entities Overview > < Entity View 17
S EMANTICA – D ATA U NDERSTANDING Advanced Entity Meeting Analysis > < Tabular Entity View 18
S EMANTICA – D ATA U NDERSTANDING Multiple Views of the Same Network > < Complexity Management 19
S EMANTICA – S TREAMLINING Workflow Management 20
S EMANTICA – M ULTIPLE P LATFORMS 21
S EMANTICA – E XTRA F EATURES Advanced Social Network Analysis 22
S EMANTICA – E XTRA F EATURES Flexible Geospatial Network Analysis 23
P LATFORM C OMPARISON Other important distinguishing factors between some of the major intelligence analysis tools include: • Location, ownership and security of information • Network and internet requirements • Database structure and the ability to transfer information between platforms easily (without meta-data loss) • Spectrum of various visualisations and analyst tools • Interoperability and customisability of software and data • Logical integration of time and geographic information 24
P LATFORM P RICE C OMPARISON The following SINGLE USER subscription quotes were received for the various analysis platforms (all prices exclude VAT): • IBM i2 Analyst’s Notebook: R365 753.44 • Online Intelligence: R167 233.28 • SAS Memex: R279 931.00 • Palantir Intelligence: R459 202.00 All the above quotes are for only for one year (and must be renewed annually) and does not include installation, connection, training or support • R263 250.00* Semantica: * This is a once-off price (with 25% yearly subscription) which includes installation, connection, training and support. Please note that this amount depends on the exchange rate and is based on US$ 20 250,00. 25
P LATFORM P RICE C OMPARISON As an example, let us compare the estimated real costs of subscription for over a period of 5 years: 1 User 5 Users ANALYSIS SOFTWARE IBM i2 Analyst’s Notebook R 1 428 767.20 R 7 143 836.00 Online Intelligence R 436 166.40 R 2 180 832.00 SAS Memex R 1 199 655.00 R 5 998 275.00 Palantir R1 896 010.00 R 9 480 050.00 Semantica R 487 500.00 R 2 281 500.00 NOTE: Of all the above mentioned platforms, only Semantica includes all of the following in the price: installation, connection, maintenance, training and support 26
P LATFORM C OMPARISON NOTE: Each platform was scored out of 10 for each comparative criteria (total out of 50) ANALYSIS INPUT & FLEXIBILITY & ANALYSIS OUTPUT & TOTAL PRICE SOFTWARE CONNECTION USABILTIY TOOLS INTEROP. Analyst’s 30 5 6 7 7 5 Notebook Online 20 2 2 3 4 9 Intelligence 27 6 5 4 5 7 SAS Memex 34 7 7 9 8 3 Palantir 41 9 8 8 8 8 Semantica 27
T HE F INAL C HOICE - S EMANTICA After making direct and indirect use of most of the intelligence analysis software toolkits on the market, Focus Africa identified Semantica as the most suitable option. This decision was not made lightly and the key considerations were: • Price and relative cost effectiveness • Overall functionality and analysis capabilities • Macro and micro environmental considerations • Easy-of-use, visual appeal and support • Flexibility and adaptability of underlying data 28
S EMANTICA – L OCAL S UPPORT AND T RAINING With the support and technical backing of Semantic Research Inc. in the USA, Focus-Africa can provide the following local services for Semantica Pro™ users in Southern Africa: • Installation, setup and connectivity support • Data identification and integration • Basic and advanced user training • Report, interface and data customisation • Customised ontology development • Ongoing issue, maintenance and upgrade management • Custom user workflow management • Specific functionality requests and improvement programs 29
S EMANTICA – D EMO There will now be a brief example of different applications and networks as used in Semantica Pro™ Examples include: • Geo-located communications analysis • Al Queda terrorist network • Mexican drug cartel • Social media tracking 30
www.focus-africa.co.za
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