The Graph Database Model
The Graph Database Model
For too long, relational database management has been the de facto standard for most of us looking to store data and retrieve the different values as and when desired. However, we have seen that there are plenty of bottlenecks associated with relational databases.The graph database model is much more simplified.
Imagine a scenario wherein you have multiple actors who have acted not just in movies but various TV serials. Some of them may be a regular feature in the TV serials while others may have appeared as special guests in a few episodes. Now, trying to access them with SQL query to obtain the different data values in such a complex arrangement could be a herculean task. So, the need was felt to have something easier, less complicated, quick and reliable. The answer came in the form of graph dataset terminology.
What is the graph database?
Graph Database Model is a much more simplified and yet powerful way by which data can be stored, accessed and retrieved. Here, in this terminology, there is a vertex which represents a thing in the real world. Every real thing in the world is going to be represented by a vertex in the database.
The next element would be an edge. An edge is mainly a representation of a relationship which exists between the two vertices and it comes with a label and a direction which makes it so much easier to understand the relationship between two vertices.
The edges can all be ‘many to many’ which makes relation description way easier.
The next element which we will deal with has to be properties. The properties aim at storing additional information for both edges and vertices. For instance, if you have a vertex for an actor, you can store multiple properties like may be, his age, his charisma, his box office record and so on.
In order to access the details of the graph terminology, the code used is the Gremlin query language. This too comes with easy to grasp command and the retrieval is really easy to understand. This language is a part of the TinkerPop Stack software. The Gremlin language is based on it. TinkerPop is incubating as an Apache project. Gremlin is a mighty expressive language which can be used for some of the most complex graph traversals. There are tutorials which can help you navigate smoothly from SQL to Gremlin and this would ease the complexities of relational database by quite a lot of margin.
There is a lot of scope for simplifying the most complex of real-life scenarios, relations and more. With the right use of this technology, one could store endless information securely and access it without any hassles. There is no doubt that the graph database model is much more efficient when compared to the traditional relational database. With the Datastax enterprise, the graph design can be coupled with the Cassandra data model and it could be the next big thing in the global graph analytics scene.