The document discusses the benefits of using a graph database, particularly focusing on the value of explicit schemas for optimizing performance through strategies like custom placement and graphviews. It emphasizes the importance of data isolation in use cases such as healthcare and provides examples of how to perform real-time navigational queries using graphviews. Additionally, it highlights the simplicity of query language and Objectivity's experience in building distributed databases.

1. www.Objectivity.com
The Value of Explicit
Schema For Graph
Use Cases
Nick Quinn, Principal
Engineer, InfiniteGraph
2/21/2014
1

2. Why use a Graph Database?

3. The Value of Schema :
Custom Placement
• Mitigate bottlenecks and optimize performance by
using the following strategies:
– Custom Placement: data isolation/localization of
logically related information (to achieve close to
subgraph partitioning) in order to minimize the number
of network calls

4. The Value of Schema:
Custom Placement
• Consider the case where you are placing medical data for
hospitals and patients. Using a custom placement model
you can achieve fairly high isolation of the subgraphs.
– Doctor ↔ Hospitals, Patients ↔ Visits.

5. The Value of Schema:
GraphViews
• A GraphView is a schema view used in the context
of navigational query.
• With GraphViews, we can use schema to perform
path qualification to achieve real-time navigational
query results.
– Use GraphViews to filter out vertex or edge types

6. The Value of Schema:
GraphViews
• Consider calculating number of links to interesting
companies on LinkedIn.
– If you are connected to recruiters, the navigation result
set can be slowed down and possibly polluted if
traversing through these recruiters.
GraphView myView = myGraph.createGraphView();
myView.excludeClass(Person.class,
“CONTAINS(profession, ‘recruiter’)”;

7. The Value of Schema:
Custom Visualizers
• Custom visualization settings and actions
determined by type.

8. The Value of Schema:
Other Topics
• Life is like a box of chocolates– Class metadata
is preserved in the database (Relationships and
Hierarchies)
• Query Language Simplicity– Using types and
filters on types is more intuitive than using labels
– MATCH [Person(name==“Steve Jobs”)] –[Friend(where ==
“Facebook”)]->[Person];
– MATCH [p:Person] –[f:Friend]->[:Person] WHERE p.name==
“Steve Jobs” && f.where == “Facebook”;

9. Why InfiniteGraph™?
• Objectivity/DB is a proven foundation
– Building distributed databases since 1993
– A complete database management system
• Concurrency, transactions, cache, schema, query, indexing
• It’s a Graph Specialist !
– Simple but powerful API tailored for data navigation.
– Easy to configure distribution and placement model

10. QUESTIONS?