Chapter 9. Other Tools Related to Neo4j

No database is complete without some tooling around it. Developers and database administrators alike need additional tools—besides the database proper—to make the database fit into a more holistic solution. Neo4j as a Graph Database Management System is no different in that respect. In this chapter, we would like to point out some important tools that are related to Neo4j and can be important in specific user environments. More specifically, we will look at:

• Data integration tools

• Business Intelligence tools

• Modeling tools

No doubt there are other tools that could be of use, but this should get you started.

Data integration tools

Very often, users will want to use the Neo4j Graph Database as part of a solution that uses a polyglot persistence strategy. This is a term that was first coined by Scott Leberknight, but later used and explained many times by well-known authors such as Martin Fowler. Essentially, what we are talking about here is the fact that most complex applications these days feature a number of different data patterns that are used under very different workloads and that can therefore benefit from very different implementation strategies.

Here's what a potential polyglot persistence architecture could look like for a hypothetical, or speculative, retailer:

An example of polyglot persistence

In the Speculative Retailer's Web Application featured in the preceding figure, there may be different use cases that rely on different data patterns, and that would be best implemented in different data stores.

The consequence of a strategy like polyglot persistence is, of course, that you introduce...

Business Intelligence tools

Because Neo4j as a graph database management system provides many advantages when interacting with inherently networked and interconnected data structures, many traditional data analysis tools can benefit greatly from leveraging its query power. There is, most notably, an entire category of tools out there that are a prime candidate for doing so: the so-called Business Intelligence tools. Tools in this space include (but are certainly not limited to):

• IBM Cognos

• SAP Business Objects

• Pentaho

• Jaspersoft

• Qlikview

We will zoom into one of these tools in the following paragraphs, but would first like to clarify the mechanism through which these tools can interface with Neo4j. Of course, they could integrate by calling the raw Neo4j REST API and submittin specific requests this way, and would get responses in the rawest possible format. This type of integration would most likely require quite a bit of integration work, but could be advised in certain more advanced use cases...

Modeling tools

As we saw in Chapter 4, Modeling Data for Neo4j, modeling for Graph databases is just as important as ever. Even though there is no external schema overlooking our data model by default, there is still a clear and important need to model. The way to define the structure of the data that we are planning to store in Neo4j needs to be documented in a clear and understandable fashion. In this section of our book, we will outline two frequently used tools that we can suggest for the development of our graph models:

• The homegrown open source toolset developed by Alistair Jones and GraphAlchemist, appropriately called Arrows

• The commercially developed and supported toolset of OmniGraffle

Let's provide a bit more detail on each of these tools.

Arrows

Originally started by Neo Technology's, Alistair Jones (www.apcjones.com) as a side project for graph documentation and visualization, the Arrows toolset today enables very easy and useable documentation of graph database models. The tool...

Questions and answers

Q1. What programming language is used to interact with Data Integration tools like Talend and MuleSoft to accomplish our Neo4j integrations?

1. Any programming language can be used

2. You have to use Java

3. You do not need to develop—you can use visual development tools to achieve the integration

4. Java is supported, but Erlang is preferred

A. You do not need to develop—you can use visual development tools to achieve the integration

Q2. What is the major downside of using OmniGraffle for developing graph database models?

1. It does not integrate with the database natively

2. You need to use a drawing tablet to use the software

3. It is only available on OS X/iPad

A. It is only available on OS X/iPad

Summary

In this chapter, we attempted to give a few additional pointers to you with regards to additional tools and technologies that could be useful complements to the core Neo4j graph database management system.

We covered additional tools around data integration, business intelligence tools, and modeling tools.

We hope this was a useful chapter and you are now ready to head into the final part of our book, that is, some useful appendices.