GraphAware Neo4j Framework

GraphAware Framework provides a platform for building custom transaction-driven behaviour into Neo4j.

Community vs Enterprise

This open-source (GPLv3) version of the GraphAware Framework is compatible with Neo4j Community Edition only. It will not work with Neo4j Enterprise Edition, which is a proprietary and commercial software product of Neo4j, Inc.

GraphAware offers a paid Enterprise version of the GraphAware Framework to licensed users of Neo4j Enterprise Edition. Please get in touch to receive access.

Versioning

The Framework version number has two parts. The first three numbers indicate compatibility with a Neo4j version. The last number is the version of the Framework. For example, version 4.0.8.58 is version 58 of the Framework compatible with Neo4j 4.0.8. Please note that we will not address issues related to the usage of incompatible versions of the Framework and Neo4j.

Functionality

On a high level, the Framework is a Neo4j kernel extension that enables the use of GraphAware as well as custom Modules. These Modules typically extend the core functionality of the database by transparently enriching/modifying/preventing ongoing transactions in real-time.

Examples of popular Framework Modules are:

GraphAware UUID
GraphAware TimeTree
GraphAware Neo2Elastic
GraphAware Schema (Enterprise Only)
GraphAware Audit (Enterprise Only)

You can also make use the Framework as a software library, taking advantage of its useful features, such as GraphUnit for testing code that talks to Neo4j.

Using the Framework

Deploying the GraphAware Framework (as well as any modules) is a matter of :

downloading the appropriate .jar files
copying them into the plugins directory in your Neo4j installation
restarting the server

The framework and modules are then used via Cypher calls to their procedures, if they provide any.

Configuration

By default, the Framework reads its configuration from graphaware.conf located in the conf directory of Neo4j. You can change the file name by setting com.graphaware.config.file to your desired value in neo4j.conf.

Community Configuration

The Framework itself has no more configuration options but its Modules typically do.

Enterprise Configuration

You can selectively enable the GraphAware Framework for different databases running within the same Neo4j instance, by setting com.graphaware.runtime.enabled in graphaware.conf to either:

* for any database (except for the 'system' database), or
name of a single database, or
a comma-separated list of database names

For example, the configuration of GraphAware Enterprise on Neo4j Enterprise with the UUID module running for all databases could look like this:

com.graphaware.runtime.enabled=*
com.graphaware.module.*.UIDM.1=com.graphaware.module.uuid.UuidBootstrapper

For two specific databases ('db1' and 'db2'), it would look like this:

com.graphaware.runtime.enabled=db1,db2
com.graphaware.module.*.UIDM.1=com.graphaware.module.uuid.UuidBootstrapper

If you wanted a different configuration of a specific module for each database, you could do

com.graphaware.runtime.enabled=db1,db2
com.graphaware.module.db1.UIDM1.1=com.graphaware.module.uuid.UuidBootstrapper
com.graphaware.module.db2.UIDM2.1=com.graphaware.module.uuid.UuidBootstrapper
# ... more config for the UUID modules ...

Note that in this case, the UUID module must have a unique ID (UIDM1 vs UIDM2).

Getting GraphAware Framework

Releases

To use the latest release, download the appropriate version and put it the plugins directory in your Neo4j server installation and restart the server (server mode), or on the classpath (embedded mode).

Releases are synced to Maven Central repository. When using Maven for dependency management, include one or more dependencies in your pom.xml. To find out which ones, read further by clicking on one of the sub-modules of this project.

Snapshots

To use the latest development version, just clone this repository and run mvn clean install. This will produce {newVersion}.XX-SNAPSHOT jar files (eg. 4.2.6.66-SNAPSHOT). If you need standalone .jar files with all dependencies, look into the target folder in the build directory.

Building Own Modules

Java developers that want to build own Modules should use the provided parent Maven module:

 <parent>
    <groupId>com.graphaware.neo4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>module-parent</artifactId>
    <version>{framework version}</version>
 </parent>

The easiest way to start is to look at the Friendship Strength Counter Module example, or the GraphAware TimeTree Module.

License

GraphAware Framework is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.