Nebula Graph in 2019: It’s Worth the Effort
It’s that time of a year when everyone is checking if their New Year Resolutions for 2019 have been met.
So do we.
In 2019, we have done a lot. And there’s also a lot that needs to be done down the road.
Looking back, we are thrilled that Nebula Graph has been shipped to so many graph enthusiasts and pioneer companies who are always seeking for cutting edge technologies for better business outcomes.
And it is worth the while.
Why bother?
It’s the birth year for Nebula Graph. Before its official birthday, there has been a long discussion of what Nebula Graph would be like and how it would be serving people in need. And even, why bother creating such a product?
In this age, it’s at everyone’s finger tips to get information. Data is exploding.
So does data not matter any more?
No, it still matters, but only to those who are able to get insight out of it.
But how?
You get it. The graph technology is one of the best ways to achieve that, for connected data in particular. As graph veterans, we all know that.
We know as well that existing graph database solutions are not good enough to meet the ever-increasing demand for both OLTP and OLAP scenarios.
Vision & Mission
Big data has been the truth of the modern age. More and more data is generated, in an interconnected manner.
And we believe that business values lie in the interconnected data. The more you are able to dig out of it, the better your business will grow.
So the vision of Nebula Graph is to enable the interconnected world, with best-of-the-art graph technology.
Our CEO, Sherman Ye, is ambitious to help businesses unleash the power of connected data. And this is the mission of Nebula Graph, shared by the team.
There’s a long way ahead of us but we’ll stick to it.
Open Source vs Closed Source
They say that open source is the new norm in the database industry. And there’s a reason for that.
At Nebula Graph, this is a quick decision because we believe in the power of community. With the support of a strong and active community, open source is the best path to our vision to enable an interconnected world.
Distributed Cluster vs Single Node
Distributed graph processing is hard. Truth. There’s simply way much more to consider from the technical perspective for a distributed cluster than a single node. Partitioning rule, data consistency, query performance and ACID compliance, just to name a few.
Tough choice, right?
Honestly, no, it’s quite an easy decision to make because distributed system is THE solution for the future as linear scalability matters.
And we believe the team is up to the challenge.
What’s achieved?
It takes time and efforts to develop a truly distributed graph database solution.
Product Milestone
In May, the Alpha version of Nebula Graph was ready to meet the public on GitHub.
Three months later, in August, the Beta version was ready, with these highlights added:
- Quick compiling
- Easy-to-deploy Neula Graph Cluster
- Learner role being added to the RAFT protocol
Another three months later, in November:
- RC 1 — Data import via CSV file
- RC 2 — Clients in Java, Python, and Go
We are getting closer to the official 1.0 version.
Feedback from the Community
We have been getting a lot of positive feeback from the community. And we are right on the power of community.
The community has been waiting for an open source distributed graph database. As the well known technology blog 36Kr wrote after interviewing Sherman Ye, Nebula Graph is working to make a truly distributed graph database available and affordable. Nebula Graph was also invited to top tech summits QCon and COSCon and gave a keynote speech titled “Thoughts and Practice on Large Scale Distributed Graph Database”.
Here are the numbers in Nebula Graph in 2019:
- Be the GitHub Trending project two times
- Has got 1,614 stars, 269 forks, and 760 commits on GitHub (as of Dec. 18, 2019)
- 20+ PoC clients at pilot stage implementing Nebula Graph
- 40+ articles on forums to share our insight on Neula Graph and the graph technology at large
- 80,000+ readers talked to us about graph databases
- 200+ enthusiasts started their journey with Nebula Graph by watching our video tutorials on Bilibili and YouTube since November
- 100+ enthusiasts attended our nMeetup events since July
What’s in 2020 and beyond?
People are using Nebula Graph and keep providing their feedbacks on what features they want Nebula Graph to have. And we are lucky to have them so that Nebula Graph can be the solution people really need.
Based on the feedback from the community, together with our own understanding of the graph database industry, we will march steadily towards our vision to enable an interconnected world.
For goals in 2020, we have the following in mind:
- Make Nebula Graph best-of-the-art graph database solution
- Query engine — Optimizer, Match algorithm, OpenCypher interface
- Storage engine — Index, transaction, OLAP
- Graph visualization
- SaaS
2. A better community to spread the graph technologies
- Online sharing via blog posts, webinars, and speaking opportunities
- Offline meetup to talk face-to-face with the community
Wish you all a happy new year!
