Automating Deployment of Neo4j Java Extensions to (Self-Managed) Google Cloud

The article presents a method for automating the deployment of Neo4j Java extensions to self-managed Google Cloud environments. The current manual process is cumbersome and prone to security breaches, as developers need to share their SSH keys with team members. To address these challenges, an automated pipeline is designed using Google Cloud Platform components such as Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Run. The pipeline consists of a Cloud Function that monitors the storage bucket for finalized objects and triggers a Cloud Function relay, which then deploys the Neo4j extension to the server hosting the database instance via SSH. The deployment process involves downloading the jar artifact from the storage bucket, deploying it directly via SSH, and restarting the Neo44j DB service. The pipeline can be tested locally using scripts provided in the article. Improvements are suggested for the image spec and deployment, as well as potential modifications to support clustered environments and metadata about deployed artifacts.