Learning Neo4j

Table of Contents

Learning Neo4j

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Graphs and Graph Theory – an Introduction

Introduction to and history of graphs

Definition and usage of graph theory

Social studies

Biological studies

Computer science

Flow problems

Route problems

Web search

Test questions

Summary

2. Graph Databases – Overview

Background

Navigational databases

Relational databases

NoSQL databases

Key-Value stores

Column-Family stores

Document stores

Graph databases

The Property Graph model of graph databases

Node labels

Relationship types

Why (or why not) graph databases

Why use a graph database?

Complex queries

In-the-clickstream queries on live data

Path finding queries

Why not use a graph database, and what to use instead

Large, set-oriented queries

Graph global operations

Simple, aggregate-oriented queries

Test questions

Summary

3. Getting Started with Neo4j

Neo4j – key concepts and characteristics

Built for graphs, from the ground up

Transactional, ACID-compliant database

Made for Online Transaction Processing

Designed for scalability

A declarative query language – Cypher

Sweet spot use cases of Neo4j

Complex, join-intensive queries

Path finding queries

Committed to open source

The features

The support

The license conditions

Installing Neo4j

Installing Neo4j on Windows

Installing Neo4j on Mac or Linux

Using Neo4j in a cloud environment

Test Questions

Summary

4. Modeling Data for Neo4j

The four fundamental data constructs

How to start modeling for graph databases

What we know – ER diagrams and relational schemas

Introducing complexity through join tables

A graph model – a simple, high-fidelity model of reality

Graph modeling – best practices and pitfalls

Graph modeling best practices

Design for query-ability

Align relationships with use cases

Look for n-ary relationships

Granulate nodes

Use in-graph indexes when appropriate

Graph database modeling pitfalls

Using rich properties

Node representing multiple concepts

Unconnected graphs

The dense node pattern

Test questions

Summary

5. Importing Data into Neo4j

Alternative approaches to importing data into Neo4j

Know your import problem – choose your tooling

Importing small(ish) datasets

Importing data using spreadsheets

Importing using Neo4j-shell-tools

Importing using Load CSV

Scaling the import

Questions and answers

Summary

6. Use Case Example – Recommendations

Recommender systems dissected

Using a graph model for recommendations

Specific query examples for recommendations

Recommendations based on product purchases

Recommendations based on brand loyalty

Recommendations based on social ties

Bringing it all together – compound recommendations

Business variations on recommendations

Fraud detection systems

Access control systems

Social networking systems

Questions and answers

Summary

7. Use Case Example – Impact Analysis and Simulation

Impact analysis systems dissected

Impact analysis in Business Process Management

Modeling your business as a graph

Which applications are used in which buildings

What buildings are affected if something happens to Appl_9?

What BusinessProcesses with an RTO of 0-2 hours would be affected by a fire at location Loc_100

Impact simulation in a Cost Calculation environment

Modeling your product hierarchy as a graph

Working with a product hierarchy graph

Calculating the price based on a full sweep of the tree

Calculating the price based on intermediate pricing

Impact simulation on product hierarchy

Questions and Answers

Summary

8. Visualizations for Neo4j

The power of graph visualizations

Why graph visualizations matter!

Interacting with data visually

Looking for patterns

Spot what's important

The basic principles of graph visualization

Open source visualization libraries

D3.js

Graphviz

Sigma.js

Vivagraph.js

Integrating visualization libraries in your application

Visualization solutions

Gephi

Keylines

Linkurio.us

Neo4j Browser

Tom Sawyer

Closing remarks on visualizations

The fireworks effect

The loading effect

Questions and answers

Summary

9. Other Tools Related to Neo4j

Data integration tools

Talend

MuleSoft

Business Intelligence tools

Modeling tools

Arrows

OmniGraffle

Questions and answers

Summary

A. Where to Find More Information Related to Neo4j

Online tools

Google group

Stack Overflow

The Neo4j community website

The new Neo4j website

The Neo4j Blog

GraphGists collection

The Cypher reference card

Other books

Events

Meetup

GraphConnect

Conferences

Training

Neo Technology

B. Getting Started with Cypher

The key attributes of Cypher

Key operative words in Cypher

The Cypher refcard

Syntax

Index

Learning Neo4j

Learning Neo4j

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: August 2014

Production reference: 1190814

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-84951-716-4

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Cover image by Pratyush Mohanta (<tysoncinematics@gmail.com>)

Credits

Author

Rik Van Bruggen

Reviewers

Jussi Heinonen

Michael Hunger

Andreas Kolleger

Max De Marzi

Mark Needham

Yavor Stoychev

Ron Van Weverwijk

Acquisition Editor

Nikhil Karkal

Content Development Editor

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Technical Editors

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Project Coordinator

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Proofreaders

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Indexers

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Priya Subramani

Graphics

Sheetal Aute

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Valentina D'silva

Disha Haria

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Komal Ramchandani

Cover Work

Komal Ramchandani

About the Author

Rik Van Bruggen is the regional territory manager for Neo Technology for Benelux, UK, and the Nordic region. He has been working for startup companies for most of his career, including eCom Interactive Expertise, SilverStream Software, Imprivata, and Courion. While he has an interest in technology, his real passion is business and how to make technology work for a business. He lives in Antwerp, Belgium, with his wife and three lovely kids, and enjoys technology, orienteering, jogging, and Belgian beer.

This book and all of the work that went on around it would not have been possible without the unconditional support of my wife, Katleen, and our three lovely kids, Mit, Toon, and Cas. Thank you!

About the Reviewers

Michael Hunger has been passionate about software development for a long time. He is particularly interested in the people who develop software, software craftsmanship, programming languages, and improving code.

For the past few years, he has been working with Neo Technology on the Neo4j graph database. As the project lead of Spring Data Neo4j, he helped develop the idea to make it a convenient and complete solution for object graph mapping. He now takes care of all the aspects of the Neo4j developer community.

Good relationships are everywhere in Michael's life. His life revolves around his family and children, running his coffee shop and co-working space, having fun in the depths of a text-based, multiuser dungeon, tinkering with and without Lego, and much more.

As a developer, he loves to work with many aspects of programming languages—learning new things every day, participating in exciting and ambitious open source projects, and contributing and writing software-related books and articles. He is also an active speaker at conferences and events, and a longtime editor at InfoQ.

He is one of the important contributors to the expert book, 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know by Kevin Henney, O'Reilly.

He has co-authored Spring Data, by Mark Pollack, Oliver Gierke, Thomas Risberg, and Jon Brisbin, O'Reilly and has also reviewed the following books:

NoSQL Distilled, Pramod J. Sadalage and Martin Fowler, Pearson

Domain-Specific Languages Patterns, Martin Fowler and Rebecca Parsons, Pearson

Pragmatic Guide to Git, Travis Swicegood, The Pragmatic Bookshelf

Art of Readable Code, Dustin Boswell and Trevor Foucher, O'Reilly

Apprenticeship Patterns, David H. Hoover and Adewale Oshineye, O'Reilly

I want to thank the four wonderful women in my life who make me happy every day and let me achieve many things.

Ron Van Weverwijk is an experienced software developer at GoDataDriven in Netherlands. He has years of experience developing both backend and frontend applications.

For the last few years, he has been building applications to explore and visualize complex network data using Neo4j. He is an expert Neo4j developer and community member. He has given several Neo4j trainings, and has spoken about Neo4j at a number of recent conferences.

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Preface

The title of this book, Learning Neo4j, is a really good title in many ways. On one hand, it reflects my own personal experience with Neo4j over the past couple of years and more. As I fell deeply in love with graph technology, Neo4j kept on providing me with new fascinating things to learn about and explore. This book, in more than one way, is a summary of that learning experience—it's the tale of my learning of Neo4j.

But the book is also supposed to provide you with lots of good starting points to get going with this technology more quickly. I know for a fact that finding learning resources on these types of technologies is not always easy, and that's really what drove me personally to spend many late nights, weekends, and holidays to put together this book to accelerate your learning of Neo4j.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Graphs and Graph Theory – an Introduction, provides you with some background information on graphs to help you understand where the technology behind Neo4j came from.

Chapter 2, Graph Databases – Overview, will try to explain how the theory of the previous chapter is used to create a new, different kind of database that is standing on the shoulders of giants. We are going to be basing ourselves on several decades of database technologies, of course.

Chapter 3, Getting Started with Neo4j, gives you an overview of several of Neo4j's key characteristics, and then helps you get going with the tool on different on-premise and cloud-based platforms.

Chapter 4, Modeling Data for Neo4j, will provide you with an introduction to data modeling for graph databases. Before you take your newly acquired tool (discussed in the previous chapter) for a spin, you need to think about the data model, just as you would with any other database.

Chapter 5, Importing Data into Neo4j, will give you a good look at the different options and considerations to import data into your newly created model (discussed in Chapter 4, Modeling Data for Neo4j). It will show you some of the different import techniques in detail as well.

Chapters 6, Use Case Example – Recommendations, will provide detailed examples of use cases for Neo4j that seem to have become quite commonplace in many different industries. This chapter focuses on recommendations.

Chapter 7, Use Case Example – Impact Analysis and Simulation, will take a deep look into the impact analysis use cases of Neo4j.

Chapter 8, Visualizations for Neo4j, will give you an overview of how to integrate the Neo4j graph database with the powerful domain of graph visualizations. We will discuss different alternatives, and point you to different resources to get started with.

Chapter 9, Other Tools Related to Neo4j, will provide you with some pointers to interesting complementary tools that relate to Neo4j, such as data integration tools, business intelligence tools, and modeling tools.

Appendix A, Where to Find More Information Related to Neo4j, gives a basic introduction to Cypher.

Appendix B, Getting Started with Cypher, discusses the Neo4j query language that we are using throughout the book.

What you need for this book

This book can be read without any additional resources; however, we recommend access to some physical lab resources to install Neo4j Community Edition