A Year in Review: Neo4j’s Top 9 Biggest News & Announcements of 2019

Is it a little over the top to say that 2019 was an historic year for the graph technology space? I don’t think so! Even in the fast-paced and ever-evolving tech world, there were a few moments that seemed to shape the trajectory of the graph database industry in 2019 and into the future.

Let’s take a look back at some of the biggest happenings in the graph universe from 2019. (In no particular order, because they’re all exciting events!)

GQL on Track to Become International Standard

One of the most exciting graph-related news stories of 2019 was actually years in the making: the initiation of GQL (Graph Query Language) as a new database query language. International committees that developed the SQL standard voted in September to make GQL the first ISO/IEC international standard database languages project since SQL. This addition of GQL as an international standard demonstrates the rapid growth in popularity for graph technology and is great news for graph users and buyers.

Neo4j AuraDB Launched: The Simplest Way to Run Neo4j in the Cloud

Fall was a busy time at Neo4j! In addition to the developments with GQL, we also launched Neo4j AuraDB, the first fully managed native graph database as a service, in November. Completely automated and developer-friendly, AuraDB makes Neo4j accessible for small and mid-sized businesses via the cloud.

Aura is a huge game changer for Neo4j, and as Emil Eifrem, CEO and Co-Founder of Neo4j, puts it, “Neo4j was founded with a mission to help the world make sense of data. The obvious next step in advancing that mission is Neo4j AuraDB.”

NODES Online Conference Connects Global Graph Enthusiasts

This year was the first-ever NODES (Neo4j Online Developer Expo and Summit) online event! NODES brought together developers and graph enthusiasts alike to talk all things graph technology. More than 1,600 attendees from around the world engaged in talks on technical topics ranging from artificial intelligence and machine learning to social media monitoring with graph technology.

(All the presentations from NODES are available on YouTube.)

Educator Program Empowers Future Graphistas

Did you know that more than 40,000 professionals promote their Neo4j experience in their LinkedIn profiles? Due to graph technology’s increasing popularity, we wanted to make obtaining these skills easier than ever for current and future developers. In October, the Neo4j Educator Program was launched, allowing for both new and experienced graph educators to provide hands-on use of Neo4j to their students in accredited, non-profit institutions, as well as K-12, college and university programs across the globe.

Neo4j Forms Integration Partnership with Google Cloud

In April, Neo4j and Google Cloud announced a strategic partnership to offer Neo4j as a seamless experience integrated with the GCP console, billing and support services. As a result of this partnership, Google Cloud makes Neo4j accessible for developers and businesses in a simple, friction-free way.

“Now every GCP user has access to graph superpowers – without having to worry about operations and management – enabling them to focus on what they care about most: building applications in the cloud,” Eifrem said in his blog on the topic.

Graph Algorithms Book Released by O’Reilly Media

One of 2019’s biggest successes was the publication of Graph Algorithms: Practical Examples in Apache Spark & Neo4j, co-authored by graph technology experts Mark Needham and Amy E. Hodler. This book, published by O’Reilly Media, delivers helpful examples for application developers using Apache Spark and the Neo4j database, and it illustrates how graph algorithms deliver value: from finding vulnerabilities and bottlenecks to detecting communities and improving machine learning predictions.

Startup Program Expands to Include Neo4j Bloom

The Startup Program was launched in 2018 to support growing businesses as they built their applications on Neo4j, enabling mission-critical applications in a clustered environment. In addition to providing free access to Neo4j Enterprise Edition for startups with up to 50 employees and $3 million in annual revenue, this year we expanded the Startup Program to include Neo4j Bloom™ for graph exploration and data visualization.

Neo4j + Digitate Partnership Progresses

Digitate’s flagship product ignio™ uses Neo4j to map context and accuracy for its Blueprint feature, and in its first quarter of availability alone, ignio acquired more than a dozen enterprise customers. ignio is an artificial intelligence and machine learning-based cognitive product that uses advanced information mapping and machine learning to optimize complex operations in the areas of IT data center, workload and ERP application management.

Neo4j Announces Availability of Neo4j Streams for Real-Time Correlations on Apache Kafka

In October, Neo4j announced a new integration with Apache Kafka® and Confluent® Platform to connect Kafka event streams. Neo4j, Kafka and Confluent customers now have a seamless, supported integration thanks to the new connector. Neo4j Streams is easily applied to a variety of real-time use cases including financial fraud analysis, knowledge graphs and customer 360.

Wow – 2019 was a whirlwind, and the graph universe seems to be expanding each day. Thanks for your support this year, and we can’t wait to see where graph technology takes Neo4j and the graph community in 2020!