Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 4
Building a Graph Database Application
In this chapter we discuss some of the practical issues of working with a graph database.
In previous chapters we've looked at graph data; in this chapter, we'll apply that knowl‐
edge in the context of developing a graph database application. We'll look at some of
the data modeling questions that may arise, and at some of the application architecture
choices available to us.
In our experience, graph database applications are highly amenable to being developed
using the evolutionary, incremental, and iterative software development practices in
widespread use today. A key feature of these practices is the prevalence of testing
throughout the software development life cycle. Here we'll show how we develop our
data model and our application in a test-driven fashion.
At the end of the chapter, we'll look at some of the issues we'll need to consider when
planning for production.
Data Modeling
We covered modeling and working with graph data in detail in
Chapter 3
. Here we
summarize some of the more important modeling guidelines, and discuss how imple‐
menting a graph data model fits with iterative and incremental software development
techniques.
Describe the Model in Terms of the Application's Needs
The
questions
we need to ask of the data help identify entities and relationships. Agile
user stories provide a concise means for expressing an outside-in, user-centered view
