Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
graph databases, because they do not support index-free adjacency, nor are their storage
engines optimized for storing property graphs. Triple stores store triples as independent
artifacts, which allows them to scale horizontally for storage, but precludes them from
rapidly traversing relationships. To perform graph queries, triple stores must create
connected structures from independent facts, which adds latency to each query. For
these reasons, the sweet spot for a triple store is analytics, where latency is a secondary
consideration, rather than OLTP (responsive, online transaction processing systems).
Although graph databases are designed predominantly for traversal
performance and executing graph algorithms, it is possible to use them
as a backing store behind a RDF/SPARQL endpoint. For example, the
Blueprints SAIL API
provides an RDF interface to several graph data‐
bases. In practice this implies a level of functional isomorphism between
graph databases and triple stores. However, each store type is suited to
a different kind of workload, with graph databases being optimized for
graph workloads and rapid traversals.
