by Angela Guess
Colin Barker recently wrote in ZDnet, “Graph databases have proved their worth with the technology being used to analyse the Panama Papers. The recent data leak from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has captured the imaginations of the world, and in particular journalists at the Washington-based, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which includes The Guardian and the BBC in its membership list. The consortium fed the leaked data into a graph database, in this case Neo4j, which crunched the data and then revealed the underlying structure of that data — thus illustrating the relationships between all of the individuals, companies, and customers involved.”
Barker goes on, “A graph database is designed, like any other database, to handle large volumes of data. The difference is that a graph database is designed to show all of the relationships within the data. Graph databases are good at managing highly connected data and complex queries. Instead of using tables, graphs use nodes, properties, and edges to define and store data, making them better at analyzing the relationships and any interconnections between data — and allowing journalists to follow the money easier than ever. As Rik Van Bruggen, a regional advocate at Neo4j, explained: ‘It is a graph database, not a graphics database. Where a regular database stores grids of columns and rows, a graph database uses a graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges and properties to represent and store data’.”
Photo credit: Flickr/ renaissancechambara