Amazon Neptune is a new cloud-hosted graphics database that was recently released after a private preview last year. Users can manage data in the form of a graphical model (a semantic data structure represented as nodes, edges, and attributes) using Amazon Neptune.

AWS manages the operations of the Amazon Neptune graphics database on its public cloud platform, so users do not have to worry about operations such as maintenance, patching, backup and restore. In addition, the service ensures its availability, provides features such as read-only replication, restore at a specified time, continuous backup to the Amazon S3 service, replication across availability zones (AZs), and supports data encryption while it is cooling or in transit.

Features of the AWS Neptune Graphics database service include:

  • Support for Property Graph model and resource Description Framework (RDF) model
  • With support for SPARQL and Tinkerpop GraphAPIs, it is compatible with related applications
  • Optimized for a billion level of relational data storage
  • Provides low latency graphical data query capabilities

Photo credit: aws.amazon.com/neptune/

In a recent Business Wire article about Amazon Neptune, Raju Gulabani, vice president of databases, data analytics and machine learning at AWS, said:

With Amazon Neptune, AWS users can create and query graphical databases in a variety of application scenarios, including fraud detection, social networking, and recommendation algorithms. Take Blackfynn, a life sciences software startup that hopes to change the way epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, AMyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurological disorders are treated. In the same Business Wire article, Chris Baglieri, the company’s associate presiding officer, said:

Photo credit: aws.amazon.com/neptune/

It’s important to note that AWS Neptune is not the only graphics database offering a fully hosted service on the public cloud. Microsoft officially launched Cosmos DB after last year’s MS Build 2017 conference. Cosmos DB, however, supports more data models, including document storage, has richer concepts for consistency, and supports partitioning. In a blog post, Thomas Larock, an Azure Data Platform MVP, compared the cost of Neptune, DynamoDB and Cosmos DB. It points out that:

Amazon Neptune is currently available in US East (Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon) and the EU (Ireland), and Amazon is planning to expand the service to more locations over the next year. Also, for details on AWS Neptune’s charges, check out the pricing page on the AWS website.

Amazon Neptune, a New Cloud Graph Database, Is Now Generally Available

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