InBrief Daniel Howard – Senior Researcher www.orientdb.com Unit 702, Salisbury House, London Wall London EC2M 5QQ Tel: +1 888 953 9572 SAP OrientDB Email: [email protected]

The company CREATIVITY SCALE OrientDB Ltd, the developer of OrientDB, was founded in the UK, in 2010. It was acquired by CallidusCloud in 2017, which was itself acquired by SAP at the beginning of 2018. SAP, of course, requires no introduction. However, it is worth noting that with this acquisition SAP now has two graph offerings: OrientDB and SAP HANA, the main differences being – from a graph perspective “ OrientDB – that OrientDB is a multi-model can do in milliseconds while HANA is (essentially) relational, and what our RDBMS could that OrientDB (mainly) uses an extended never do. With it, we are SQL for processing, while SAP on the HANA EXECUTION TECHNOLOGY much more effective at side is a supporter of the OpenCypher catching fraudulent language. A statement of direction with The image in this Mutable Quadrant is derived from 13 high level metrics, the more the image covers a section the better. activity in real time. respect to these offerings is expected during Execution metrics relate to the company, Technology to the 99bill.com ” Q1 2019. However, all the indications are that product, Creativity to both technical and business innovation and Scale covers the potential business and market impact. OrientDB will not just continue to be marketed but will have more resources available to it.

What is it? document/, but since then the core (native) engine has been extended to include OrientDB is a multi-model database with extended objects, spatial and key-value elements. Moreover, property graph database capabilities. It is an open the product now offers a multi-model API that source offering, although there is an Enterprise allows you to work with all types of model (including Edition available (with a 30-day free trial) that documents, graphs, objects, and so on) seamlessly includes additional features such as monitoring, through a single interface. The product is ACID auditing, incremental backups, multi-data centres, compliant and supports strong consistency, though and so on. The latter also comes with a variety of eventual consistency is an option. support, consultancy and training options. It supports Apache TinkerPop (either as an API, Both on-premises and cloud-based deployment for backwards compatibility with TinkerPop 2.6, or as options are available, the latter including AWS and a plugin for later versions) and, especially, . . It is also suitable for running on the More importantly, it uses an extended form of SQL edge, although to do so you may need to strip out for query processing that leverages MapReduce some of the less essential features (such as Studio – under the covers. OrientDB’s version of SQL notably see below). includes live querying, the ability to create queries The product is targeted at both operational that are updated dynamically as your data changes and hybrid operational/analytic environments. It is over time. The product can be used in full schema, also worth commenting that OrientDB has enjoyed schema-free or hybrid schema environments considerable success with third party technology and uses sharding for distributing data across a companies (most notably TIBCO and Informatica) cluster. Scheduled full and incremental backups are embedding its database into their products. supported. In addition to the database itself, there is a native What does it do? ETL engine that can be used to import and export The developers claim that OrientDB was the first JSON documents. Teleporter, as seen in Figure 1, multi-model graph database to be launched (in is an additional tool included with Enterprise Edition 2009). Originally, it was designed as a hybrid that provides transformation capabilities for mapping

© Bloor 2019 Analytics Language Ease of Use Operations Features Performance Integration “ Once we began using OrientDB and working with graphs, our algorithms were 2.5 times faster. from a relational to a graph model. OrientDB of your data in a single place in whichever form New.sc ” also includes a connector for Apache Spark and best suits it. This is particularly relevant with the the Neo4j Importer. The latter allows you to readily rise of big data and the quantity and variety of and easily import an existing Neo4j database (or, to be data that comes with it. Moreover, although other more specific, the nodes, relationships, indices, and multi-model exist, all the data types unique constraints contained therein) into OrientDB. supported by OrientDB are addressable vis a single language. This is not typically the case with other multi-model offerings. The Community Edition is open source, with all the benefits and caveats that entails. Combined with the ability for multi-model databases such as OrientDB to obsolete several of your existing database products and licenses at once – that is to say, to take their place – the Community Edition’s total cost of ownership will often be quite low. This lends the product a measure of financial efficiency, which is retained (although obviously to a lesser degree) with the Enterprise Edition. Figure 1 – Mapping relational data to a graph model in Teleporter The company has also taken great pains to ensure that OrientDB is easy to use. The time it takes to start using it is minimal – configuration and installation are strictly optional – and several tools are made available to make your life easier, particularly when it comes to converting traditional data formats to graph (via Teleporter) and migrating data from an existing Neo4j installation (via the Neo4j Importer). In addition, Studio makes it easy to view and explore your system, and querying is intuitive thanks to the Figure 2 – The server management dashboard in Studio product’s support for SQL, which is rare within the graph space. There is also a Studio tool that allows you to The Bottom Line view and edit your OrientDB environment via a web browser. This provides a variety of ways to view As a multi-model database, OrientDB is ahead of and manage your database, including a server the pack, owing to its relatively long lifespan and management dashboard (see Figure 2), which a thriving open source community. As a graph displays various metrics relating to your server database, it is exceptionally easy to implement cluster, as well information about any single server and to use, thanks in large part to the great in real time; a SQL browser; and a graph editor, work done by Studio, Teleporter, and the Neo4j allowing you to view, explore and modify your Importer. Moreover, the ease of use benefits graph through a visual medium. There is also a of being able to write graph queries using SQL JDBC connector to support integration with various cannot be overstated. (partner) visualisation tools. Given the support of SAP, we expect a bright future for OrientDB. If you are in the market for a Why should you care? multi-model graph database, it is certainly worth a look. OrientDB’s number one selling point is that it is a multi-model database. The chief advantage this offers is that it allows you to store and manage all FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND RESEARCH CLICK HERE

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