A Rule-based Conversion of an EER Schema to Neo4j Schema Constraints

• Telmo Henrique Valverde da Silva Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC)
• Ronaldo dos Santos Mello Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4262-5474

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbbd.2021.17876

Resumo

Several application domains hold highly connected data, like supply chain and social network. In this context, NoSQL graph databases raise as a promising solution since relationships are first class citizens in their data model. Nevertheless, a traditional database design methodology initially defines a conceptual schema of the domain data, and the Enhanced Entity-Relationship (EER) model is a common tool. This paper presents a rule-based conversion process from an EER schema to Neo4j schema constraints, as Neo4j is the most representative NoSQL graph database management system with an expressive data model. Different from related work, our conversion process deals with all EER model concepts and generates rules for ensuring schema constraints through a set of Cypher instructions ready to run into a Neo4j database instance, as Neo4J is a schemaless system, and it is not possible to create a schema a priori. We also present an experimental evaluation that demonstrates the viability of our process in terms of performance.

Palavras-chave: Conceptual modeling, NoSQL graph database, graph database design, entity-relationship model, Neo4j

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