TechNews: The Wild, Wild World of Graph Databases
If you’re a member of the SMPS Alaska Chapter you might know that our theme last year was Connect the Dots. What you probably don’t know is that there’s a really good chance that one of the dark blue dots on this map represents you.
Most of us are familiar with relational databases like Microsoft Access and Deltek Vision. We use these tools every day to organize information in tables, and then sort that information so that we can find what we’re looking for. Say, a list of engineering firms in Juneau and corresponding phone numbers—or maybe all project numbers from 2012 with their descriptions. Organizing data this way is fast, practical, and convenient. But it has its limitations.
Where relational databases fall short, graph databases step in. The map above is a visualization of a graph database. Specifically, it shows the connections between the people that I’m connected to on LinkedIn. The larger dots, more accurately called nodes, represent people with more connections within my network. The largest pink node unsurprisingly represents my husband; we know hundreds of people in common. The large blue nodes represent well-connected people in my Alaska A/E/C network, while the small pink nodes on the periphery are people I know—and who know each other—from Twitter.
You can make a similar map for yourself here. It’s quick and lots of fun. (And you’ll get to see the name associated with each node.) For me, the most practical application for the map was to identify my different professional groups, see how they were connected, and to identify where my ties were weak—looking at this map, I can tell where I should probably spend a little extra time networking.
It’s worth noting that it's very difficult make a map like this from a relational database. A table in Microsoft Access could contain the name and phone number of every person in Anchorage, but it would struggle to uncover the relationships between those people, much less weight those relationships.
The world of graph databases is wild and exciting because relationships matter. In fact, lots of people are betting that the future of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software lies in graph databases.
The bottom line: There’s more to data management than traditional relational databases. Graph databases are rising in popularity and have practical applications for the A/E/C marketer and business developer.
Jessica Taft
President-Elect, SMPS Alaska Chapter
Marketing Director, Enterprise Engineering, Inc.
[email protected]
