Graph database provider Neo Technology, maker of the Neo4j database, has released an open source project, openCypher, that makes the popular Cypher language freely available to technology providers as a universal way to query graph data.
The Cypher language allows users to focus on their domain instead of getting lost in the mechanics of data access. It is designed to be accessible to both developers and operations professionals.
Neo Technology made the announcement at its recent GraphConnect conference in San Francisco.
The creation of openCypher is a key element in the evolution of the graph data space. Like SQL did for relational databases, Cypher promises to accelerate the usage of graph processing and analysis worldwide by making it easier for any data storage, analytics or tooling platform to offer access to graph capabilities using a universal query language.
Neo4j, 12 years in development, is an open-source graph database implemented in Java and accessible from software written in other languages using the Cypher query language through a transactional HTTP endpoint. Neo4j is an ACID-compliant transactional database with native graph storage and processing.
Graph search, an open-source database project built on all the networking we do online every day, is the most far-reaching search IT to go mainstream since Google started storing up and ranking Websites more than a decade ago. Basically, a graph search database anonymously uses all the contacts in all the networks in which you work to help you find information. Anything you touch, any service you use and anything people in your networks touch eventually can help speed information back to you. It avoids anything non-relevant that would slow down the search.
openCypher promises to accelerate a quickly expanding graph data space because it offers users increased skills marketability and reuse, tooling providers easy support for multiple database backends, and organizations and end users the benefits of technology independence, Neo4j said.
Initial supporters of openCypher include Neo Technology, Oracle, Databricks (the company behind Apache Spark), Tableau, GraphAware, GrapheneDB, Graph Story, GraphGrid, Information Analysis Incorporated (IAI), Linkurious, Structr and Tom Sawyer Software.
Five-year-old Neo4j is the world’s most downloaded graph database, competing with OrientDB, Apache Giraph, GrapheneDB, CODASYL, ArangoDB, and TitanDB.
To learn more about—or to download—openCypher, go here. You can read Neo4j’s blogpost on the launch here.