What a mind bender, especially when structure is all your brain is used to. I really never thought too deeply about the idea of a graph based databases. However, why not? We have other types so a graph based database seems inevitable. The question is how am I going to understand it?
Impressions of the Book
This chapter was did well with the examples. Based on what I was given everything made sense so it was a good chapter on that basis. It was a thorough overview with a lot of good specifics in the right places most of the time.
What I learned
To be completely honest I am not really sure I learned much beyond what Wikipedia could offer me, but it is completely my fault/problem. As mentioned in earlier posts my brain is fairly well wired for rdbms’ and the Key Value pair and Document based NoSQL Db’s have really caused me some problems. Having a graph based one has really done a number on me.
I Don’t “Get It”
One of my biggest blockers was; outside of the example data given I really couldn’t expand to any other types of data to be stored. Normally I can come up with something to better understand the storage strategy, even it if is bizarre. I think Graph Based is just a bit beyond me right now, but I am going to stick with it because it seems very promising in what examples were given.
Scale Up and Down
I was happy to see that Neo4J was able to scale up and down. It can even go from 1 to 34 billion nodes, that is impressive, and allows for some real flexibility.
Overall
I am going to keep researching on Neo4J since something about it is just very interesting. Granted I really don’t understand it too well right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future. If you can figure out how to use it well it seems very promising. Also, if you “get it” please come back and try to explain it to me better.
The final chapter is coming, and I bet they are saving one of the best for last, maybe. Next week is Redis, and I peeked at the first sentence of the chapter and it is very intriguing, I will let you wait until next week to find out what it is. Redis gets a lot of buzz for various reasons so I am excited to read about it.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Buddy,
you might look at some of the presentations at http://video.neo4j.org to get an idea of other use-cases for graph databases or other blog series, e.g. on http://maxdemarzi.com or http://markorodriguez.com
In general everywhere where you have connected data you have a graph. That can be from any domain, from public transport, ERP-systems, CRM’s, facility management, spatial/GIS, recommendation databases, social networks, information/news-handling, product databases, whatever, after all in all aspects of our lifes there are things connected, and most often the connections are more important than the actual things.
Whatever you can draw and discuss on a whiteboard with circles and arrows, fits perfectly in a graph.
Disclaimer: I work on Neo4j and love that I became a graph addict.
In theory I can understand that “if you can graph it on a whiteboard it fits” concept, but it just hasn’t clicked with my brain yet. I’ll definitely checkout the videos, I love videos. If I have any questions I’ll definitely ask since it seems you are the man to go to
Hi Buddy,
Feel free to have a look at Bio4j project ( http://www.bio4j.com ) for a real case of biological BigData integration with Neo4j
Cheers,
Pablo
That is cool. I need to brush up on my biology terms. I have forgotten some of the specific words they use from a Biology perspective. It looks really interesting thanks for linking me.
Something I look at when considering a new technology is the community. I want to know that 1) smart people are working to improve it, 2) other people are excited to extend it, and 3) it will be around tomorrow.
I worked with every database community included in this book (and a couple who didn’t make the cut). Though not a politically savvy thing to say, the Neo4j folks have been the most responsive and eager to help (and no, I’ll never reveal who was the least). They have also been, annoyingly, the fastest moving (from 1.4-1.6.x in 6 months!) making it hard to keep up. But this is good news for everyone /except/ me
Just with the few post I have on Neo4J I am seeing how awesome the community is. I agree that community should be a part of the analysis, and seeing how enthusiastic the Neo4J community is makes me want to learn it all the more.
Yeah fast moving technology is awesome, except, when writing books. I can see that for sure, but I think you did a good job.