Towards distributed processing of RDF path queries Heiner Stuckenschmidt* Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1081a, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands E-mail: heiner@cs.vu.nl *Corresponding author Richard Vdovjak Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands E-mail: r.vdovjak@tue.nl Jeen Broekstra Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1081a, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Aduna, Prinses Julianaplein 14 b, 3817 CS, Amersfoort, The Netherlands E-mail: Jeen.Broekstra@aduna.biz Geert-Jan Houben Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands E-mail: g.j.houben@tue.nl Abstract: A technical infrastructure for storing, querying and managing RDF data is a key element in the current semantic web development. Systems like Jena, Sesame or the ICS-FORTH RDF Suite are widely used for building semantic web applications. Currently, none of these systems support the integrated querying of distributed RDF repositories. We consider this a major shortcoming since the semantic web is distributed by nature. In this paper we present an architecture for querying distributed RDF repositories by extending the existing Sesame system. We discuss the implications of our architecture and propose an index structure as well as algorithms for query processing and optimisation in such a distributed context. Keywords: index structures; optimisation; RDF querying. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Stuckenschmidt, H., Vdovjak, R., Broekstra, J. and Houben, G-J. (2005) ‘Towards distributed processing of RDF path queries’, Int. J. Web Engineering and Technology, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, pp.207–230. Int. J. Web Engineering and Technology, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, 2005 207 Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. 3-Stuckenschmidt.qxp 15/12/2005 15:16 Page 207