In this chapter, we will introduce you to graph analysis using Storm to persist data to a graph database and query that data to discover relationships. Graph databases are databases that store data as graph structures with vertices, edges, and properties, and focus primarily on relationships between the entities.

With the advent of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, social graphs have become ubiquitous. Analyzing relationships between people, the products they buy, the recommendations they make, and even the words they use can be analyzed to reveal patterns that would be difficult with traditional data models. For example, when LinkedIn shows that you are four steps away from another person based on your network, when Twitter offers suggestions of people to follow, or when Amazon suggests products you may be interested in, they are leveraging what they know about your relationship graph. Graph databases are designed for this type...