Graph Databasesand Neo4j

Brett Ragozzine, PhDData Scientist

Intermountain Big Data ConferenceNov 21, 2015

Introduction

● PhD, Astrophysics○ Dark matter, gravitational lensing, image analysis

● Data Scientist - CompuCom (remote, Dallas)○ IT Outfitter, Service, Support○ 1000 customers, millions of end-users

● Digital Innovation team○ Neo4j

Outline

● Graph databases (NoSQL)○ Why they’re different○ What they do well

● Neo4j● Cypher query language● GraphGist examples● Use cases● Links for getting started

Graph Databases

● Great at storing: ○ Relationships

(“first-class citizens”)○ Properties○ Sparse data, densely

● Relational DBsstore all the 0s

Graph Databases

● Great for searching:○ Subsets of the graph

● Great at finding:○ Labeled data○ Indexed data

■ relational DBs are too○ Pattern matches

■ e.g. ''Friend-of-a-friend''

Graph Databases

● Nodes, relationships, properties, labels○ Billions of nodes, relationships

● Properties○ Don’t store too many together (slow)○ Turn properties into nodes, where applicable

● Don’t store large files in a graph○ Do store url

Graph Databases

● Schema○ Design your graph around the your questions

■ Very different from relational DBs○ Easy to re-design on the fly

■ Turn nodes into properties or vice versa■ Difficult to do with relational DBs

Graph Databases

● Architecture○ Single Master

■ Transactional(single write - pass/fail)

○ Large cluster■ High availability

(multiple queries/reads at once)

Cypher Query Language

● Interact with Neo4j○ Add, delete, change, query data (SQL-inspired)

● Symbolic language○ Node ()○ Property {name:''Brett''}○ Relationship <-- or -->

■ ()<--() or ()-->()○ Label [:PERSON]

Cypher Query Language

● Example(brett:PERSON {name:''Brett''})-[:HAS_TITLE]-> (ds:TITLE {name:''Data Scientist''})

(brett)-[:WORKS_FOR {from:''April 2015''}]->(cc:COMPANY {name:''CompuCom''})

Examples: GraphGists

● Let’s go to the browser● localhost:7474

How to Get Started

● Use cases○ http://neo4j.com/use-cases/

● Neo4j tutorial○ http://neo4j.com/graphacademy/

● GraphGists○ http://graphgist.neo4j.com/#!/gists/all○ https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/graphgist/wiki

How to Get Started

● Books

Other Graph Databases

● Top 5 Most Popularhttp://db-engines.com/en/ranking/graph+dbms (number of mentions, job postings, etc)○ Neo4j○ Titan○ OrientDB○ ArangoDB○ Giraph

The End

● Thank you, and happy graphing!

(brett)-[:HAD_FUN]->(speaking)