Chapter 3. Efficient Data Modeling with Graphs

Databases are not dumps for data; rather, they are planned and strategically organized stores that befit a particular objective. This is where modeling comes into the picture. Modeling is motivated by a specific need or goal so that specific facets of the available information are aggregated together into a form that facilitates structuring and manipulation. The world cannot be represented in the way it actually is; rather, simplified abstractions can be formed in accordance with some particular goal. The same is true for graph data representations that are close logical representations of the physical-world objects. Systems managing relational data have storage structures far different from those that represent data close to natural language. Transforming the data in such cases can lead to semantic dissonance between how we conceptualize the real world and data storage structure. This issue is, however, overcome by graph databases...