December 2021 Summaries

The Neo4j Developer Relations team has been actively creating educational resources for the community in 2021, including podcasts, video training series, and livestreams. These resources cover various topics such as graph technology, data science, healthcare, life sciences, AuraDB, knowledge graphs, and full stack graph visualization. The resources are designed to be accessible to both newbies and experienced developers, with bite-sized learning options like the "Bite-Sized Neo4j for Data Scientists" series. The team also hosts a Global Graph Celebration Day livestream, which celebrates the birthday of Leonhard Euler, the inventor of graph theory, and features conversations with the community on various graph-related topics. These resources are available on the Neo4j YouTube channel, updated weekly, and can be accessed by subscribing to the channel.

The NODES 2021 conference featured a wide range of sessions and talks on graph databases, including the world's biggest graph database demo and presentations from industry experts like Emil Eifrem, CEO of Neo4j. The conference covered various topics such as building graph-powered applications, AI & ML with graph data science, graph-native scaling, and creating graphs with Arrows.app. Additionally, there were talks on using Neo4j and GraphQL, information extraction pipelines, machine learning pipelines in Neo4j, and visualizing graph data. Some notable sessions included a deep dive into building a link prediction model in Neo4j and using knowledge graphs to combat the medical climate crisis. The conference also featured interviews with community members and customers who shared their graph stories and experiences with Neo4j.

Neo4j had a remarkable year in 2021, marked by significant funding, new board appointments, and groundbreaking achievements. The company secured $390 million in Series F funding, raising its valuation to over $2 billion, and welcomed two new board members. Neo4j also conducted the Forrester TEI Study, which found that customers realized a 417% return on investment using graph technology. The company played a crucial role in exposing the Pandora Papers through its graph database capabilities. Additionally, Neo4j demonstrated its scalability by handling over a trillion relationships and showcased its AuraDB Enterprise and AuraDB Free offerings. Many leading companies, including NASA, DZD, TCS, and others, adopted Neo4j's knowledge graphs for digital transformation and cybersecurity enhancements. The company also announced the winners of this year's Graphie Awards and outlined key trends driving adoption in graph technology.

The text discusses the latest innovations in the graph space, highlighting several webinars from 2021 that cover topics such as knowledge graphs, graph data science, cybersecurity, and supply chain management. The webinars include "Connections: Graphs for Cybersecurity", which explores how companies use graphs to outmaneuver attackers, and "Graph Databases for Dummies", an interview with the authors of a book on graph databases that helps identify scenarios where graph technology is useful. Other webinars cover topics such as visualization with Neo4j Bloom, knowledge graphs for supply chain management, and supervised graph machine learning in Neo4j. The text encourages readers to check out these webinars and others on the Neo4j Webinars page.

This week's edition of Twin4j features a discussion on the importance of graph analytics in detecting conflicts and fraud, with Paul Loke being awarded a Neo4j Graphie Award 2021 for his work. The Tree of Life Web Project is also highlighted, which uses Neo4j to compile information about biodiversity. Additionally, Mako is introduced as a new software tool that converts microbiome data into a graph database, allowing researchers to carry out network-based queries. Other topics include improving Bloomberg Terminal with graph data science, integrating Neo4j with Gravitee for SSO, and exploring cognitive biases using graphs. The edition also features a community member spotlight on Paul Loke and a call to action to RT if you liked the article.

Graph databases, such as Neo4j, can enhance the functionality of applications by providing added value and functionality without the end user realizing it. Graph databases unlock the power of connected data, which can lead to new insights and analytics, and are everywhere, with hundreds of different use cases already being used. They provide a flexible and agile data model that allows for rapid evolution without disruption, making them ideal for high-risk data migration scenarios. Additionally, graph databases enable scalability, computing efficiency, and improved developer productivity, resulting in reduced costs and increased value creation across complex data landscapes. By embedding a graph database, such as Neo4j, into an application, organizations can gain an edge on data modeling and performance, leading to new levels of insight and value.

Neo4j is expanding its partner ecosystem to leverage graph databases and unlock data-context for richer insights, better decisions, and faster innovation. The company has capitalized on alliances with TCS, Infosys, and Cognizant to extend global sales and delivery capabilities, resulting in joint wins across various verticals. Neo4j has also expanded its presence in rapidly growing markets such as Brazil, China, India, and Australia through partners, and trained over 1000+ graph practitioners from leading system integrators. The company is driving ecosystem momentum with a focused investment and a growing team of partner expertise, including new hires Michael D. Moore, Charlie Davishas, Gary Bean, Gavin Feng, Andrea Cerqueira, and Taran Radia, who will lead global partner enablement programs and drive growth through partners.

The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1945 revolutionized medicine, increasing life expectancy by 30 years. However, antibiotic resistance is becoming a significant public health crisis, threatening to reduce global GDP by 2-3.5% if left unchecked. To counter this, researchers have developed an infectious diseases knowledge graph on Neo4j, which helps doctors prescribe the right antibiotic for the right diagnosis at the right dosage, reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance and superbugs. The system considers factors such as patient medical history, diagnosis, dose, duration, and drug type to provide a complete picture of the patient and possible diagnoses and treatments. By linking data on patients, diagnoses, doses, and durations, the knowledge graph enables physicians to treat their patients in the most effective way while minimizing antibiotic resistance and addressing the medical climate crisis.

Neo4j Bloom 2.0 has been released, offering improved features such as scene saving and sharing, histogram functionality, and enhanced editing capabilities, allowing users to create beautiful visual graphs without writing code. The new version is available for free in Neo4j AuraDB Free, Desktop, and Sandbox environments. Meanwhile, a security vulnerability was discovered in the Log4j project, affecting Neo4j versions 4.2 and later, prompting users to review the Apache Log4j Security Vulnerability page for recommended actions. Additionally, community member Michal Štefaňák has been recognized for his work on a PHP library that enables connectivity with Neo4j, which is now part of the new PHP driver, allowing the PHP ecosystem to work with recent Neo4j versions again. The Neo4j Graphie Award 2021 was awarded to Michal for his contributions to the graph community. New courses and tutorials have also been released, including one on importing CSV data into Neo4j, while a blog post discusses how jQAssistant can assist in detecting applications that use the Log4j framework.

Neo4j has shared two engaging videos on its YouTube channel. The first video, created by Neo4j's Content & Demand Gen Copywriter Kara Doriani O'Shee, addresses the importance of considering bias in AI. Meanwhile, a second video featuring Alexander Erdl and Joe Depeau showcases how graph technology can be applied to explore Pokémon, providing valuable insights for beginners and experts alike. Viewers can catch up on all the latest videos by subscribing to Neo4j's YouTube channel, which is updated weekly with new content.

Neo4j AuraDB is a cloud-based solution that simplifies the process of building web applications with Neo4j, a leading graph database. It eliminates the complexity associated with setting up and managing Neo4j on-premises or in Docker containers, allowing developers to focus on developing their business solutions. With Neo4j AuraDB, users can quickly get started by signing up for a free instance, installing the PHP client, and configuring their application to connect to the database. The solution offers built-in scalability, reliability, and security, making it an excellent fit for teams that want to build future-proof web applications with ease.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the global supply chain industry, causing disruptions in manufacturing, transportation, and logistics, as well as a decline in demand for products and services. In response to these challenges, companies have accelerated their digital transformation projects, moved to cloud-based systems, and adopted Neo4j for various use cases, including supply chain management. The need for complete end-to-end visibility, security, transparency, and agility has become increasingly critical, and knowledge graphs are being used to model and analyze complex interdependencies in supply chains. By transforming data into a relationship-centric approach, companies can better manage, analyze, and visualize their data, providing them with a trackable and in-depth picture of products, suppliers, facilities, and relationships. This allows for improved resilience, transparency, and security in the supply chain, enabling companies to proactively address issues and make complex decision-making easier.

The new version of NeoDash 2.0 is a reworked open-source dashboard builder that allows users to directly visualize their Neo4j data as graphs, bar charts, tables, maps, and more with some simple Cypher queries. The application offers improved performance, stability, and interactivity, including customizable visualizations, parameter-select cards for dynamic specification of Cypher queries, and easier saving and sharing of dashboards. A new dashboard editor has been integrated, featuring an in-built Cypher editor for writing report queries and integrated documentation with query examples, as well as enhanced customization options. Users can now create interactive graph data visualization dashboards to tell a graph story and share them with others.

Neo4j Bloom 2.0 offers a range of features for empowering domain experts in organizations with no-code graph data visualization and exploration capabilities. Users can create and share perspectives, which provide different business views of the same dataset, and assign roles to control access. Search phrases allow users to conduct queries without writing Cypher code, while deep links enable easy access to specific search results. The platform also includes histograms for data filtering and improved editing features. With Bloom 2.0, users can save and share scenes with others, including exporting screenshots or CSVs, and accessing them via the new Scenes icon in Full Access Enterprise installations. By leveraging these features, developers can build out-of-the-box graph visualization solutions that save time and effort, while also providing seamless integration with Neo4j databases.

Neo4j Bloom is an intuitive data visualization tool that freely interacts with Neo4j's graph data platform without requiring code. It has been delighting users since its initial release in 2018 and has now been updated to version 2.0, featuring key improvements such as scene saving, scene sharing, histogram functionality, improved SSO capability, and enhanced editing support. These updates aim to make it easier for data analysts and scientists to explore Neo4j graphs, developers to integrate graph visualization into their applications, and business users to view results of analyses and interact with specific parts of the graph. The tool is designed to facilitate collaboration across different teams and provide a self-guided analysis experience.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has released a dataset from the Pandora Papers investigation, which can be explored using Neo4j. Michael Hunger dove into the data and created content around it. This week's edition of Twin4j features articles on knowledge graphs with named entity recognition and text analysis of Electronic Health Records. Ashleigh N. Faith, a featured community member, specializes in multilingual search and behavioral analytics focused on semantics, interoperability, and natural language processing using ontologies and knowledge graphs. Her work has been recognized with the Neo4j Graphie Award 2021. The week also includes videos on building knowledge graphs with Neo4j and transformers, exploring Electronic Health Records with MedCAT and Neo4j, and bite-sized Neo4j for data scientists. A virtual event, Neo4j Connections: Graphs for Cloud Developers, is scheduled to take place in December 2021, where experts will share their expertise and showcase real-world projects.

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, embedded databases are becoming increasingly popular as they enhance the functionality of applications without requiring significant modifications. Neo4j, a graph database, can be used as an embedded database to provide added value and functionality to applications. This approach enables organizations to minimize their investment in product development while shortening the product life cycle by embedding someone else's technology into their products. Graph databases are designed to capture and store relationships between data, providing powerful features that wouldn't be possible without them. The rapid growth of the graph database market is driven by its ability to uncover hidden insights through graph analytics, improving machine learning feature engineering, and providing more explainable AI. Factors fueling graph adoption include speed, AI maturity, ease of use, cost, standardization, and knowledge graphs that expose metadata and business rules, enabling data scientists to quickly identify and use the data they need while preserving context. By embedding a graph database in a product, organizations can take advantage of these benefits without straying from their core competency.

At Dell Technologies, graph technology has enabled a significant evolution in their architecture by connecting data and transforming systems from monoliths to microservices and ultimately to a true service cloud. The use of graph technology has helped improve system scale and performance characteristics, particularly in terms of availability and performance. By processing some of the response stack ahead of time, Dell Technologies created an architecture that is truly cloud and infrastructure-agnostic, allowing for high availability and performance characteristics. Graph technology has also been used to glue separate systems together, bringing disconnected data entities together. The use of graph algorithms such as community detection and similarity has enabled new transformations in their systems, including forward chaining and projections. Overall, the adoption of graph technology at Dell Technologies has led to a significant transformation of their architecture and systems.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has released a dataset containing financial secrets of global power players, revealing how they have benefited from offshore systems by hiding assets in covert companies and trusts. The dataset consists of 26k officers, 18k entities, and 1,000 intermediaries, with a consistent data model that links officers to entities and intermediaries. To explore the data, users can download and install Neo4j Desktop, create a new database from the dump file, and use the Neo4j Browser or Neo4j Bloom Visualization Software to query and visualize the data. Users can also follow published stories by searching for specific individuals, organizations, and jurisdictions mentioned in the story, using Neo4j's query language or the Neo4j Bloom interface. Additionally, users can access code examples in multiple programming languages and a full GraphQL project for building a dashboard or app, as well as a read-only database available on the neo4j-labs demo server.

Jim Webber, Neo4j's Chief Architect and CTO, sat down with Matthias Sieber, a long-time graph devotee, to discuss his experience with Neo4j. Matthias has been working on a project to end homelessness in Los Angeles county using graph technology. He believes that graph problems exist across industries and projects, including civic tech. The conversation touched on teaching Neo4j, the importance of quality documentation, and the role of graphs in making the world a better place. Matthias emphasized the need for accessible documentation, citing his own experience with exploring technology through documentation and contributing to the Neo4j codebase. He also discussed the potential for graph databases in civic tech, highlighting events like Graphs4Good and investigative journalism initiatives that leverage graph technology to bring about positive change.

Neo4j 4.4 has been launched with significant improvements in data processing, including native text indexes and Single Sign-On (SSO) for seamless authentication with cloud-based identity providers. The new version also features zero downtime for database upgrades, cloud-native APIs for faster application development, and reduced memory requirements when importing large datasets. The Neo4j Graphie Awards showcase innovative graph-based projects among customers and partners, while a featured community member, Adrien Sales, has been recognized for his open-source work and contributions to the Neo4j ecosystem. Additionally, articles and white papers discuss topics such as graph embeddings, AI-powered problem-solving, and using Neo4j with Cypher for puzzle-solving in Advent of Code.

This course, Building Neo4j Applications with Node.js, is a free, self-paced online learning platform that teaches developers how to build applications using Neo4j and the Neo4j JavaScript Driver. The course assumes prior knowledge of JavaScript, NPM, and the Node.js ecosystem, as well as some experience working with Neo4j. It covers three modules: Project Setup, The Neo4j JavaScript Driver, and Interacting with Neo4j, which guide learners from complete beginners to experts in building Neo4j applications. The course includes a hands-on approach, allowing learners to practice their skills by implementing the remaining features of a working API that serves data to a SPA.

The Neo4j Graph Database 4.4 has been released in general availability, offering significant new features that enhance its performance, scalability, and usability. The database's secure and high-performance architecture allows it to scale with data and business needs, minimizing cost and hardware while maximizing performance across connected datasets without compromising data integrity. Key features include Cypher CALL {…} IN TRANSACTIONS for massive gains in data processing, a cloud-native API for simplified application development, zero downtime remote database administration, native text indexes for faster text-based matches, and support for ARM Macs with official Docker images. Additionally, the release introduces single sign-on for browser, Bloom, and the Neo4j Graph Database, user impersonation for secure multi-tier applications, and a robust transactional guarantee. With these features, developers can achieve full control over how their applications interact with the database, making it an ideal choice for those requiring a stable, yet advanced and future-proof graph database.

The Neo4j Graphie Awards recognize individuals and projects that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and impact in the field of graph-based technology. This year's winners represent a diverse range of industries, including healthcare, finance, and supply chain management, and showcase innovative applications of graph technology. The awards are given to both established companies and startups, as well as individuals who have made significant contributions to the graph community. With over 200 nominations received this year, the Graphie Awards continue to grow in popularity and recognition, highlighting the growing excitement and enthusiasm for graph-based technology around the world.