SIERRA: a visual query interface for property graphs

Abstract

Graph Database Management Systems(DBMS) are the fastest growing category of DBMS used by developers. Graph DBMSs are much better suited to solve problems dealing with connected data than traditional RDBMSs. Hence, they are widely used in domains such as Fraud Detection & Analytics, Recommendation Engines and Social Media Networks. However, working with Graph DBMSs requires users to pick up a new querying language, with Cypher being the most predominant graph querying language. Moreover, graph query languages are created with expert users in mind (eg. developers and data scientists) making it hard to non-expert users to utilise graph databases fully.

Therefore, our project’s aim is to provide an intuitive and novel graphical user interface (GUI), named SIERRA, that allows the creation of rich and complex graph queries for graph databases. SIERRA employs the use of a unique node-link diagram, allowing users to draw nodes and connections and transform them into Cypher queries.