Data modeling in Neo4j - Neo4j in Action - page 31

This will match any pair of nodes where the first is labeled as a User having the specified
name property value, the second is labeled as a Permission , and there is a path of
any length between them. Finally, it returns the distinct names of all of the Permission
nodes it has matched.
Now suppose you want to add a new feature to this model, reflecting the organization's
hierarchicalstructure.Notonlycanusersbelongtogroups,groupscanbesubgroupsoflar-
ger groups— Testers , UX Designers , and Coders could be subgroups of the group
Development , for example. Figure 2.6 shows the new model, extended with a sub-
group_of relationship between groups.
Figure 2.6. The access control model extended to support subgroups
Changing the RDBMS query to support this scenario would be a non-trivial task, but the
Cypher query that worked with the initial model will work just as well with the extended
one, because it is indifferent to how you get from a User to a Permission .