Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Graph Databases - Overview
In this chapter, we want to contextualize the concepts around graph databases
and make our readers understand the historical and operational differences
between older, different kinds of database management systems and our
modern-day Neo4j installations.
To do this, we will cover the following:
• Some background information on databases in general
• A walk-through of the different approaches taken to manage and store
data, from old-school navigational databases to No-SQL graph databases
• A short discussion explaining the graph database category, its strengths,
and its weaknesses
This chapter should then set our readers up for some more practical discussions
later in this topic.
Background
It'snotalwaysveryclearwhentheirstrealdatabasemanagementsystemwas
formallyconceivedandimplemented.EversinceBabbageinventedtheirst
complete Turing computing system (the Analytical Engine, which Babbage never
really managed to get built), we have known that computers would always need to
have some kind of memory. This will be responsible for dealing with the data upon
which operations and calculations will be executed. But when did this memory
evolveintoaproperdatabase?Whatdowemeanbyadatabaseanyway?
