nanog mailing list archives

Re: Graphical databases ?


From: Yan Filyurin <yanf787 () gmail com>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 10:12:40 -0400

I am also in the process of consideration, but there are people out there who did a lot more more.  

https://github.com/corestate55/netomox <https://github.com/corestate55/netomox>

Some ideas could be borrowed. And the use of RFC8345 is very interesting because it is hopefully an evolving standard.  
If only someone could do something similar with Openconfig models. 

With that being said there are all kinds of other database alternatives.  I can think of several other graph databases 
and I even heard of people using MongoDB as graph database.

There are also tools like Gephi that are more in line as graphical tools as opposed to graph databases.  So it is a 
matter of finding the right frontend and with the right graph database backend. 

There was some experimentation with Cytoscape and and the idea was not necessarily to keep inventory, but be able to 
simulate dependencies and do analysis like indirect impacts.  

It does not directly answer the question, but hopefully gives some ideas. 

Yan

On Oct 11, 2019, at 5:05 AM, Simone Ricci <simone () apuacom it> wrote:

Hello Craig,

although I think we’re slightly off topic here, please be aware that neo4j is not a graphical database (eg. it 
doesn’t aim to be gui-driven), but a *graph* one: this characteristic tells you about the paradigm the db engine uses 
to organize and indicize data; it’s just another flavour, the others being - for example - relational and document 
databases.

Operationally wise is quite hassle free, also has an integrated backup tool which does its job; being a java 
application it consumes a fair amount of ram just to run :-)…it uses lucene under the hood (just as elasticsearch 
does), so memory wise you should take dataset size into account and plan accordingly. Our dataset is very small so I 
can’t be very helpful on this matter. Runs nicely in docker and there’s also an official image.

I use it for outside plant documentation, for me does its job definitely better than an excel file, but it’s not so 
user friendly: the data visualization tool does its job but feels more a PoC than a mature application, and it’s read 
only…so for data entry you have to manually write queries. I’m looking to integrate it with a proper GIS solution in 
the future.

TL;DR: it’s fine if you want to use it as a database for your application, but it’s not a complete application by 
itself (even if the integrated data visualization tool does its job pretty well). Operationally wise is a piece of 
cake, also runs nicely in docker.

Regards
Simone

Il giorno 11 ott 2019, alle ore 04:14, Craig <cvuljanic () gmail com <mailto:cvuljanic () gmail com>> ha scritto:

Has anyone used the graphical data base software:
https://neo4j.com/ <https://neo4j.com/>

I looked at this software several years ago, but it will still relatively new. 
We are exploring using this to create dependencies of our network infrastructure hardware, customer information, 
etc. etc. 

here is an example:
https://neo4j.com/graphgist/network-dependency-graph <https://neo4j.com/graphgist/network-dependency-graph>

For those that have used it:
Has anyone been able to successfully use this for their networks? 
pros/cons/good/bad

Is maintaining the data a chore? 
Has it helped operationally?

if anyone has any input would appreciate hearing from you;

thanks;

CPV




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