Advantages of graph databases: Easier data modeling, analytics

In his role as principal data scientist at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Kirk Borne sees the world in terms of data connections. "Life is about who is connected to whom and what is connected to what," Borne said, and he pointed to graph databases and graph analytics applications as new ways to capitalize on such connections. That's because graph databases, a form of NoSQL software, document the connections between data points quite different compared to mainstream relational databases. Graph systems represent data not as elements in tables, but as nodes linked to one another by edges with a set of properties that delineate the relationship between nodes. Therefore, one of the advantages of graph databases is they allow data analysts to navigate through data sets without the need to create and run complex queries to join combinations of tables together, as in the relational model.