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What is GMA graph?

All the entities and relationships are stored in a graph database, Neo4j. The graph always represents the current state of the world and has no direct support for versioning or history. However, as stated in the Metadata Modeling section, the graph is merely a derived view of all metadata aspects thus can always be rebuilt directly from historic MAEs. Consequently, it is possible to build a specific snapshot of the graph in time by replaying MAEs up to that point.

In theory, the system can work with any generic OLTP graph DB that supports the following operations:

  • Dynamical creation, modification, and removal of nodes and edges
  • Dynamical attachment of key-value properties to each node and edge
  • Transactional partial updates of properties of a specific node or edge
  • Fast ID-based retrieval of nodes & edges
  • Efficient queries involving both graph traversal and properties value filtering
  • Support efficient bidirectional graph traversal